Richmond's dire injury situation has asked the pertinent question on if the AFL will allow more flexibility to clubs with long injury lists.
The Tigers have just enough players to cover their starting 23 and three emergency spots for Friday night's Dreamtime at the G clash with Essendon. But, if one or more players went down with injury or illness the club would have to request special assistance from the AFL to recruit top-up players.
So should the AFL change its rules to allow a supplementary list of players for each club that they can call on in times of a list crisis, like it had during the pandemic, or is this just another rarely happens scenario that the AFL doesn't need to make more new rules and adjustments for?
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge agrees with the former.
"One of the things I was talking about having conversations with the AFL; I think we need more fluidity in the scope to bring players onto an AFL list to be able to play them," Beveridge said.
"Richmond now are a prime example where like a supplementary list to be able to feed players onto it to call on them as your injury toll worsens.
"The 23 rounds, pre-season games are still there, when Tasmania come in there is likely to be another round, with only 42 (on a list) outside of category Bs it's not enough on a list, I don't think. I think the opportunity to have a four to six supplementary approach and maybe even send it out a bit further for a team and a club like Richmond who are feeling the pinch with their injury toll, so you can bring players up and play them as the year goes on.
"There's a bit of detail to work around that in terms of who goes in and out and what hold you have on someone at the end of the year, but I really feel like we need that and it's something for the future."
The most recent example of a club having to use top-up players was the West Coast Eagles in 2022 when the club was restricted to just 17 AFL-listed players due to Covid-19 for a match against North Melbourne.
Back then, clubs were allowed to have 20 reserve players on a supplementary list in case of a mass outbreak of Covid-19 within the squad.
Beveridge believes the AFL should look to some of Tasmania's list concessions in terms of rookie and list sizes as a path forward for the future for all clubs.
"Drafts are important, you need key dates and you need to prepare and plan and strategise to make sure your list is worked through in a really sophisticated way," he said.
"The plans for (Tasmania's) list building and how many they will have on their list I think every AFL club should have the scope to have something similar if you have got an injury toll like some of the clubs have. But we have to work through that."
