A CAP on rotations and the use of substitutes are among the options to reduce the number of interchanges for the 2011 season.

They are among seven proposals put forward by the Laws of the Game committee that include allowing a score to be registered as a goal or a point whether the ball touches a post or not.

AFL operations manager Adrian Anderson released the proposals on Wednesday, and the League is now calling for feedback from the football community.

The options to curb the number of rotations during games, which have risen rapidly in recent seasons, are:

- The bench to comprise three interchange players and one substitute player;

- The bench to comprise two interchange players and two substitute players;

- Cap of 80 interchanges per match (including changes at breaks).

"Interchange numbers per club have doubled from an average of 58 per game in 2007, to 116 per game in 2010," Anderson said. "In 2003, clubs were interchanging players at a rate of 22 per match, less than 20 per cent of current totals.
 
"Players are fresher and travelling at higher speeds, and the medical advice is telling us there is an increased risk of injury from high-intensity collisions if we were to let the speed of the game continue increasing unchecked.

"The medical research highlights the extent of this injury risk, particularly in the situation where teams are trying to keep up with opponents who are rotating players more heavily than they are.”
 
Anderson said the trend towards higher numbers of rotations also meant it was now very hard for a team to win a game if it lost a player through injury, but its opposition still had a full squad.
 
"The use of interchange was originally designed to help teams when they had an injury, but it now hinders the team with an injury because they can no longer rotate their players as much as the opposition to keep the players fresh," he explained.

The other proposals put forward by the laws committee for public discussion are:

- Length of game: adjust the timing of quarters to keep their length between 29-30 minutes;

- Advantage rule: player not umpire decides advantage (as per 2010 NAB Cup trial);

- Boundary umpires pay free kicks for holding and high contact at stoppages (as per 2010 NAB Cup trial);

- Free kick against player who drags ball under opponent;

- Rough conduct (shepherd): make consistent with head down over the ball rule so that a player who shepherds is liable if he makes forceful contact with the head, unless the contact was caused by circumstances outside the control of the player which could not reasonably be foreseen;

- Scoring system: if a ball hits the posts inside the goal-scoring area and goes through, it remains a goal. If ball hits the posts inside the point-scoring area and goes through, it remains a point.

The change to the scoring system that is up for discussion was raised by a number of clubs during meetings with the AFL this year.
 
"This proposal was raised as one idea to reduce any scoring errors that may occur, and purely leave the decision as to whether the ball has completely crossed the line or not," Anderson said.
 
Clubs will be asked for their feedback on all the proposals within the next month.

The public will have the opportunity to participate in the debate through a survey at http://afl.to/laws-survey-2010.

View the full Laws of the Game proposals document by clicking (PDF document will open in a new window)