There’s no doubt the new rule change surrounding interchange rotations will be widely debated over the off-season.

In case you’re not yet up to speed with the latest, the AFL recently announced that it will be capping the amount of interchanges next year to 120.

I think most clubs average between 130-150 interchanges per game, so it’s going to change how some go about managing their workload on match day.

For us players, it means there will be fewer opportunities to have a quick rest on the bench.  

But to be quite honest, I’m not expecting the rule change will affect me too much at all.

As it is currently, I don’t really get too many chances to sit on the bench, and that suits me just fine.

In fact, I’m probably one of the least rotated players at the Club, and might only come off a couple of times for an entire match.

That’s generally the case for most key defenders and forwards, because we usually get a chance to have a quick breather when the ball is down the other end of the ground.

It’s a different case for our midfielders though – particularly guys like Rockliff, Redden, Hanley and Rich – who don’t get much ‘down time’ so need to be rotated pretty heavily to ensure they can run out a full game.

Having less rotations means these guys might need to have a spell up forward at times, instead of heading to the bench.

I personally think the change is good for the game as it rewards those players who have put in the hard yards over summer to get themselves ultra-fit so they can run out full games during the season.