Collingwood midfielder Dayne Beams heads for the interchange bench as Luke Ball runs onto the field. Picture: Stephen Harman. Source: Herald Sun
AFL coaches have been warned players will be subjected to "carnage" akin to cage fighting if the league leaves the game unchecked by rule changes.
As AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou warned an interchange cap would come in despite the objections of coaches next year, the dangers facing players if the league did nothing was laid bare.
Professor Kevin Norton, the author of an AFL-sanctioned research report about rules and former AFL general manager Adrian Anderson's confidante on the subject, said there was a link between game speed, serious injuries and concussions.
He says without the recent rule changes to make the game more continuous - fatiguing players and slowing them down - AFL would resemble mixed martial arts.
But Norton, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Australia, said football left unchecked would be a brutal, dangerous game which put players at risk.It would be carnage. The players are so big and so powerful. It is frightening
"I watched AFL 360 last night and people were saying why don't they stop changing the rules," he said.
"I saw Greg Williams interviewed recently (about his brain issues). With the size and speed of players, if we hadn't changed the rules, the carnage would be unbelievable.
"If we let players go for 20 seconds and then rest for 20 seconds, it would be like watching MMA (mixed martial arts). It would be carnage. The players are so big and so powerful. It is frightening.
"If they get enough rest to completely recover they generate such huge power. It makes sense from a physiological point of view to try to take the edge off their power."
Norton, who worked for Adelaide for seven years and the AFL for 13, said the league's rules to make the game more continuous had dramatically lifted the time the ball is in play.
It went from an average passage of play of 21 seconds before a 21-second stoppage, to 40 seconds of continuous play with just 15 seconds of rest.
Player density has reduced those positive changes, but ideally players become tired, and hit with less force, doing less damage to opponents.
Norton said changes designed to protect players heads meant less cases of concussion, but said the connection to player speed could be made.
Norton's recent report - Changes in Player Density 2001-2012 - shows player density has doubled in the past four years, with vast numbers of players regularly crowding stoppages.
Demetriou yesterday was adamant the interchange cap was coming in 2014.
"The fact of the matter is, unless people have got amnesia, the AFL Commission has already passed the rule," Demetriou said.
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