Damien Hardwick does not expect his players to be willing to sit out games during the condensed fixture
A fixture cram like never before is about to hit the AFL. But does Damien Hardwick have any interest in a cricket-style rotation policy flagged by the Swans? He thinks he knows what his players will say.
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Richmond coach Damien Hardwick does not expect his frontline stars to be willing to sit out games during the condensed fixture, but says it’s “probable” premiership duo Bachar Houli and Shane Edwards could rejoin the squad.
Bracing for a “really challenging period” after the release of the AFL’s crammed Round 9 to 12 fixture, Hardwick said his side boasted “competitive beasts” who wanted to play as often as possible.
“If they’ve got a decision to play or train, which one do you reckon they’re taking - ‘I’ll play’,” the premiership coach said.
“These guys are competitive beasts. They want to play every game they can. They would play every second day if they could - they just love it.”
The revised fixture from July 29 which will see 33 matches played over 20 consecutive days has sparked debate over whether clubs will have to rest their stars during this period.
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The Tigers, already nursing a long injury list, face top-eight contenders Western Bulldogs, Brisbane Lions, Port Adelaide and Gold Coast during this period.
Hardwick was among the coaches to call for an extended interchange bench to help ease the load on players, but the AFL has resisted this move.
“Look, personally I wouldn’t have minded it, but the reality is it’s not going to happen, so we move on pretty quickly and we start to manage our players as best as we can,” Hardwick said on SEN on Wednesday.
“In saying that, I don’t want to put a ceiling on it. If the players are available and they feel great, then we’ll probably play them.
“Once again, we are in a shorter, condensed game at the moment, our players are pulling up a hell of a lot fresher so we will make that call game by game.
“We won’t go in with a preconceived plan, as such, but we will have some plans in place if that makes sense.”
Hardwick remained hopeful Houli and Edwards, who stayed in Melbourne for family reasons rather than joining the interstate hub, could return at some stage.
“They’ve, obviously, stayed back (in Melbourne), both for personal reasons and both are still in those same situations,” Hardwick said.
“We’ve left our younger playing group training in our Melbourne hub, but primarily also to help those guys train in numbers, so they’re still training.
“So there is a possibility they could come over at some stage. But once again, family comes first at our footy club and we’ll support those guys as much and as best as we can.
“If it comes to a stage where they can come over and play, they’ll have to serve a couple of weeks’ quarantine, but they are pretty good players so we would welcome them back with open arms.
“It’s probable. I’ll give you that.”
Hardwick admitted managing the return of captain Trent Cotchin from a hamstring injury would be a “challenge” in the crammed fixture.
“He is training well and won’t play this week, but the condensed fixture will make it interesting for him when he does play or how many games he does play,” he said.
“Obviously with a hamstring injury and the history he has, it’s going to be a little bit of a challenge for us to manage that one.
“He’s one of those guys that we will have a place for him, but not necessarily the whole squad.”
CATS SHOULD REST STARS AGAINST ROOS: RIEWOLDT
Rebecca Williams
St Kilda great Nick Riewoldt says Geelong should consider resting all of its top-line stars in its round 10 clash against North Melbourne.
Addressing how clubs should handle their player management during the AFL’s condensed fixture, Riewoldt said clubs had the option of either staggering player rest or picking a game it expected to win and then resting all of its stars.
In a provocative suggestion sure to inflame the Kangaroos, Riewoldt said the Cats should take that approach against North on August 5 at the Gabba.
“Looking at the clubs that we all assume are going to contend, getting your players through and keeping them healthy throughout this period is going to be absolutely critical and maybe the difference between winning a flag or not,” Riewoldt said on Fox Footy’s On the Couch.
“I think you highlight a game. You pick a game and you say ‘That’s a game that we should win, we’re going to rest all our stars’. You’re going to get them through, you’re going to back them in.
“In Round 10, Geelong play North Melbourne. They’ve got a big injury list, so you back them in to get the job done and you rest players, either your stars or your players that might be at risk.
“So (Patrick) Dangerfield, (Joel) Selwood, (Mitch) Duncan, (any player with a) soft tissue (injury). I think you bite the bullet, you then rest them all and back the rest of your squad.
“I think it’s why the clubs wanted a list of four or five games, not drip-fed one or two.”
CRICKET-STYLE ‘ROTATION POLICY’ COULD HIT AFL
- Ben Horne
Sydney coach John Longmire says fans will be robbed of seeing the best players play every game, due to the AFL’s refusal to increase the interchange.
Longmire admits coaches will have no choice but to introduce a cricket style “rotation policy” to AFL selection to cope with the move to a compressed schedule.
The Swans currently have 10 senior players on their injury list, a number which would have ballooned out to 14 for this week under the proposed model of four or five day turnarounds between matches.
News Corp reported last week that the AFL’s justification for rejecting a push to increase the number of bench players from four was because of game cannot afford the million dollar bill that would come from the extra match payments each week.
Longmire fears the best of the best package that AFL fans and broadcasters sign up for will be severely compromised.
“Yeah it does. We’d like and clearly the fans would like our best players playing every week. And we would like to come up with a mechanism that can do that,” said Longmire.
“I think the logical way of doing it would be to have an extra couple of players on the bench if there were injuries, that could share the load with your best players, which would mean they could back up from game to game.
“Otherwise it would have to be a rotation policy.
“There are tipping points. If you have 10-14 players on your injury list that are combination of seniors and reserves that’s OK, but once they become quality regular senior payers you have to be mindful that … everyone in the team, the club, the game, the supporters, all want to see the best players playing.”
Longmire said if the Swans are forced to move into a hub should the COVID-19 situation in NSW worsen, they will have to take an army of players with them to deal with the demands of the schedule, given their already depleted list.
“This is not a comment about this game but more about the upcoming challenges for all AFL clubs. We’ve got this week 10 senior players that may not be available. And if we had a five-day break, probably add another four to that. So that would be 14 senior players you’d miss if you were playing off a four or five day break off the weekend’s game,” said Longmire, who expects one experienced star, Sam Reid to return from injury to face Hawthorn on Saturday at the SCG.
“That’s significant. I was hoping the AFL would consider another couple on the interchange.
“The example being on the weekend, we played Tom McCartin off not training much for three weeks and we got an injury early in the game, in Colin O’Riordan and had to play Tom for longer so he was a bit sorer in the follow up and now takes an extra couple of days.
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“We expect him to be right but if he had to play off a four or five day break that gets tough. If you’re playing players off a limited preparation and you get an injury during the course of the game you’re putting a lot of pressure on those players to back up the following game if you don’t have any extra on the interchange.
“That’s a challenge and then it gets down to what do you do at three quarter time if you’re in front or behind? You need to make sure you’ve got that result in that game in mind but also you can’t help but think about the availability of your players for the next game.
“While we all agree with the theory about the fixture certainly another couple of extra on the bench would certainly help with the workload players are going to confront during this period.”
Originally published as Damien Hardwick does not expect his players to be willing to sit out games during the condensed fixture
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