This week brought us the news that Essendon captain Jobe Watson wanted to organise a sit-down protest at the start of his side’s Round 1 game with the Western Bulldogs in opposition of the AFL’s new sub rule. Although the sit-down did not eventuate, he was last night backed by Geelong star Joel Selwood on The Footy Show.
Selwood said that a sit-down “may occur throughout the year, it will be spoken about by the players.”
Firstly, let’s get one thing straight. A sit-down would be a very radical step for the players to take. There would be huge implications, possibly there would be a case for those involved bringing the game into disrepute. As such, it’s hard to see it happening.
But, maybe that doesn’t matter anymore.
What the leaking of the Watson story has done, even though action was never ultimately taken, is highlight far more strongly the opinion of players on the issue. The media, and quite possibly the AFL, are being forced to pay more attention to the players’ point of view.
And when you dig a little deeper, it’s easy to understand where the players are coming from.
Premiership-winning coach Leigh Matthews, analysing the impact of the new rule for AFL.com.au this week, reckons the AFL’s intention with the substitute is to increase player fatigue, which is supported by some pretty sound logic.
“The first significant impact of the new system is that this year footy is a game played between two 21-man sides instead of two 22-man sides,” he wrote. “Basic maths tells us that with 21 instead of 22, on average, each player should play around 5% more game time and therefore be 5% more fatigued.”
The reasoning behind wanting to increase player fatigue, as Matthews explains, is “to slow a trend via which the game was looking more and more like a rolling maul of players wrestling for the footy because players were able to run flat out to follow the contest knowing they could go to the bench and re-charge regularly.”
While the AFL’s war on congestion is admirable, it’s hard not to wonder what negative effects intentionally increasing player fatigue may have. This was apparently Watson’s concern when he raised his sit-down suggestion at the meeting of club captains and AFLPA delegates – that there would be more fatigue injuries and the new rule would create a major player welfare issue.
During the consultation phase of bringing in the new rule, the AFL sold fans (and presumably other stakeholders) the idea that reducing interchanges would lead to less soft-tissue injuries.
Now, however, it’s obvious that interchange numbers weren’t the most important issue on the AFL’s mind and the league’s intentions were far broader than just injury-related outcomes.
After all, all seven winners from Round 1 had more interchanges than their opponents, with the interchange count in the drawn game a close 108-106. It’s clear there remains a strong incentive to heavily interchange – although, bizarrely, the AFL have already admitted as much.
All this suggests the players have two very good reasons to be concerned.
Firstly there’s the potential outcomes of increasing player fatigue and whether player welfare is affected or even whether in the long-run careers will be cut short. And in the background, there’s also the issue of why the AFL haven’t been up-front from the start – why did the league last year offer the sub rule as a method of reducing interchange numbers, yet this year say those numbers would stay high?
For all that, though, the sub rule may end up having its desired effect, or the effect outlined by Matthews anyway. It may be just what’s needed to combat congestion and get rid of the “rolling maul of players wrestling for the footy”. We’ll find out as Season 2011 continues.
But whether it’s the answer or not, if players like Watson and Selwood feel the welfare of players is being jeopardised in pursuit of this more ideal game, then they have a right to speak up.
And we owe it to them to pay attention.