TO REST or not to rest, that is the question.

The fact is resting players if you can afford to is perfectly logical but in the AFL it is regarded as culturally unacceptable.

Conditioning coaches have been arguing for many years that resting players every couple of months would be a helpful method to achieve optimum long-term performance.

The reality is that if a team does not win enough games to qualify for the finals then long-term becomes irrelevant.

Even after getting the 12 wins to qualify there is great value in finishing as high up the list as possible.

First has the advantage over second because if the top team wins their opening final, they go straight into the Friday night preliminary final and the valuable extra day's preparation advantage over the Saturday preliminary final winner. The top four get a second chance and a guaranteed home final and both fifth and sixth also get a home final.

For these basic reasons every home and away match is treated like a grand final. Teams and individual players are going flat out each and every week.

So the luxury of resting players, taking the short-term pain for long-term gain, is just not practically possible.

When the Brisbane Lions were regularly racking up big wins in the early 2000s we were able to go into player maintenance mode early in many last quarters. Get players on and off to increase or lessen workloads.

If no specific issues on the day, normally it was Voss off because of his bung knee and Keating off because he was the most injury-prone.

Now with the vastly increased interchange rotations, even that maintenance mechanism is not possible because it is very much a 22 versus 22 spread of game time.

This year St Kilda entrenched in first position with 15 wins and Geelong in second place with 13 wins, three ahead of the third-placed Western Bulldogs, are two teams who have the rare but very real option of resting players.

The round 14 contest between the unbeaten Saints and Cats was a watershed match.

For the winner an undefeated season was still possible and for the loser it was more about peaking in September.

The game itself was as physically and mentally gruelling as a game of footy can be, and that includes many grand finals.

It is undeniable that the two midfields in particular tackled and pounded each other into exhaustion. I have rarely seen such enormous heat around the footy as this game provided for its entire two hours.

The challenge of maintaining winning momentum with preservation of fitness and long-term energy levels is a delicate balancing act.

After their round 14 footy war, the Cats and the Saints adopted vastly different approaches to the following round.

St Kilda, maybe with an eye to maintaining their unbeaten run, fielded virtually the same team against the Eagles in Perth. In an error-ridden game they did enough to win but clearly had a down day.

The results of the accumulated wear and tear that came from the last two weekends will never be absolutely quantifiable but I will be surprised if not carefully managed, that it will not lead to negative repercussions down the track.

At least with a full strength team on the field the Saints had the ability to spread the load over many good players.

Geelong seemed to take the opposite tack, eventually withdrawing seven players from their match against the Brisbane Lions. This put even more load on the remaining regulars.

Publicly the Cats rested no one – all seven were listed as either injured or sore. It is hard to believe that, as they all finished the game the week before, if it had been a final they would have all missed.

Two key things happened in the Brisbane game.

One, an under-strength Geelong team was clearly outplayed by a very good Lions performance. It was obvious once Brisbane got a few goals in front that the Cats did not have the talent, the energy or the will to avoid a bad beating.

Secondly, while the loss will have no effect on their ladder position it provided another physical pounding on top of the energy-sapping Saints game the week before.

I thought Joel Selwood and James Bartel in particular appeared half a metre slow in speed and reaction time. This meant when they got the footy they could not break clear and were comprehensively nailed by the hard-tackling Lions and were regularly buried in the Gabba turf.

A game off for this pair, and throw in Joel Corey and Paul Chapman as well, to refresh and rejuvenate would be a very valuable long term strategy. Not necessarily all in the same week but certainly over the next few rounds.

All decisions are based on the calculation of reward and risk.

The Cats' aura of invincibility has already been compromised in recent weeks which, while unfortunate is a worthwhile price to pay if the reward is to maximise the fitness and freshness of their playing list for the finals.

Geelong took a wise, safety-first approach after the St Kilda loss.

Only a premiership this year will stamp their dominance of the last three years and putting player maintenance as the highest priority for the next few weeks should be Geelong’s primary short-term aim.

Being prepared to use July as a mini practice month and put the foot on the accelerator again in August, while having its risks might just deliver the best results in the month that really matters – September.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.