The authors of the AFL’s annual injury survey say there is nothing in it to convince them an interchange cap will result in fewer injuries.
Results released on Wednesday showed that AFL players missed fewer games through injury last year than for any other season since 2008.
Survey co-author Hugh Seward said the figures demonstrated that the introduction of a substitute two years ago had not caused the injury increase some feared it would.
But he said it was not enough to draw any link between numbers of interchange rotations and injury prevalence, or to predict what effect the planned introduction of a cap next year would have on injury numbers.
“I don’t think we can draw interpretations about caps or no caps from this particular data,” Seward told reporters.
“What we can say is that there was a lot of concern that a change from four interchanges from three interchanges and a sub two years ago would lead to a higher incidence of injuries.
“We can definitely say that that didn’t occur.
“Can we contribute the (injury) reduction to the change? We can’t say that either.”
The report was released a day after AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou stated an interchange cap would definitely be introduced next season, despite widespread opposition from clubs.
But he said it would not necessarily be set at the maximum of 80 rotations being trialled during the current pre-season, with the results of the injury survey one of the factors the league planned to use to set the precise number.
Survey co-author John Orchard said while the data didn’t allow them to draw a clear link between interchange numbers and injuries, it was clear that if one club in a match rotated much more than their opponents it did have an effect.
The club rotating less was significantly more vulnerable to injury, because fatigued players were opposing fresher ones.
He said this could account for the assertions of some clubs that their own data showed that increasing rotations actually decreased their injury rate.
“They actually reduce their own injury rate to the detriment of the opposition,” Orchard said.
He said that provided an argument for introducing a cap, to ensure fairness, but didn’t mean the actual rate of rotations was linked to injury numbers.
