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CANTERBURY forward James Graham wants the NRL to consider adding players to the interchange bench, believing rugby league’s current replacement restrictions are hurting teams’ chances of winning.
The NRL has promised to investigate a reduction from 10 to possibly 8 interchanges for the 2016 competition as a way to negate the increasing speed of the game, but Graham insisted other options need to be canvassed.
The Bulldogs front-rower believes too many clubs are disadvantaged by losing a player to injury in a game and it is particularly damaging when it is someone in a specialist position such as hooker or in the halves.
Graham said the NRL should look at other sports such as football where teams have a variety of options on the bench but can only use a set number for the duration of the game.
“I think most teams play with eight (interchanges) and then have two up their sleeve anyway,” Graham said.
“Maybe if they reduced it to eight I don’t think it would make that much of a difference.
“I don’t like seeing players go off injured … I like the idea of a muted 18th man or whether you have five players on the bench but you can only use four.”
The idea of an 18th man was discussed by several coaches last year, who were upset at losing a player to concussion or foul play and then being disadvantaged for the remainder of the game with one less player on their bench.
Graham said the major advantage of his idea would be the ability of coaches to have specialists available if a key position were injured.
“I personally don’t like it say when a fullback goes off and you’ve got the winger there and someone has to move. It can really disjoint the team,” he said.
“If the halfback goes off you need someone to change roles. I really don’t like that and it adds a lot of pressure on the boys moving position and I think you don’t have the best players playing that position and to me it’s a problem easily fixed.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...s-on-nrl-benches/story-fni3g67w-1227220573550