"A lot of players came out … and said that if the substitute rule comes in, and we go from four and zero to three and one, there will be so much extra fatigue that injuries will sky-rocket," one of the survey's authors, associate professor John Orchard, said on Wednesday.
"And we can say unequivocally they haven't. In fact, they've gone the other way.
"We're far more non-committal on what the future will be (if a cap is brought in).
"But we would pour a bit of cold water on people who want to make expert statement to say that if you're more fatigued you're definitely going to get more injuries."
However, the survey's authors have been at pains to point out that more data is needed before a concrete link can be established between the sub rule and the reduced number of injuries.
They are also remaining non-committal about whether a cap on interchanges should be introduced.
"(The data related to injuries) is promising, it's better than going the other way, but in terms of the decision about future rule changes, far more than injury is taken into account," Orchard said.
"But injury will be taken into account. The AFL will look at this data and weigh it up with all the other factors they are considering.
"It certainly won't be a decision that's just made by the injury side of things … but we are part of the jigsaw, rather than the whole pie, when it comes to rule changes.
"We can give advice based on our best educated guesses.
"But it's not something that we'd like to come out and be equivocal and say: 'We know that setting a cap at a certain level will reduce injuries by a certain amount.'
"That's certainly something that we can't to and wouldn't want to do."
Nevertheless, the AFL's research team already has some evidence to support the League's push for a cap on rotations.
Data has shown that where there is a big discrepancy in the number of interchanges each team has - one team rotating 120 times compared to its opponent rotating 100 times, for instance - the team that makes the least interchanges is likely to suffer more injuries.
"It's the fatigued player playing on a fresher player that gets injured," Orchard said.
"That is an argument in itself in favour of a cap, in that for all games all teams will have the same number of rotations and there won't ever be a mismatch."
