AFL Rd 13 2024 Pre Game Prognostications Carlton vs Essendon

[kruddler]

Yep
But there are a heap of variables that come into play and affect the overall picture.
Just as an example....

We play Binns instead of Pittonet.
A young bloke still finding his feet, he ends up with a dozen possessions.
The extra runner provides a  bit of extra spell for some of our mids.
But we lose all of the contribution to the mids that Pittonet would generate.
It's never a case of "all gain and no loss".
That's the balance you have to determine as a coaching group.

How significant is that extra rest a runner provides?
Do players like Cripps and Walsh's onfield time reduce significantly because of the extra runner on the bench?
Given that the breaks would be spred over most of our runners, how much extra rest does each actually get?
What is the effect of reducing the game time of our prime movers?
They get a bit of extra rest and that may be beneficial.
But if they're not out there, we lose their influence.
Whose going to spend the most time on the bench.?
There's a fair chance it's the fringe player or one of his ilk.

It's not just a case of extra runner, extra rest.
It's much more complicated than that, and why, when working these combinations out, you need a good bit of football knowledge and experience.

Too many questions to answer them all but the short version is this.

Everyone gets slightly more rest.
The extra small, gives us rotations not only through the bench but also up forward (or down back).
So Cripps doesn't necessarily have to rest on the bench, you can plonk him at FF for a few minutes at a time and then he is on the ground whenever you need him, rather than stuck on the bench.
Kennedy can go forward for large parts of the game and then do bursts on the ball.
Williams can do similar.
You can even use Fantasia further up the ground in bursts too.

More players = more rest = more 'bursts' = more pressure.

Of course the down side is you can burn out your ruck a bit more, but we've got a fresh one to bring in next week if we need too.

If we ended up doing a swap of rucks every other week we could actually get more out of our #1 ruck each week as a result as they don't get ground down by the pressure of backing up each week.

As a club, we are at our best when we are pressuring.
When we struggle, its because we lack speed and run.
A small over a tall fixes both those problems.