INTERCHANGE SYSTEM SET FOR IMPROVEMENT

The AFL is set to make a backflip over its complex changes to the player interchange system. The Age believes that executive-level talks at the competition's headquarters yesterday have resulted in the decision to dump a key element of the new system only two weeks after it was introduced. The AFL's football operations boss, Adrian Anderson, is believed to have taken the in-principle decision to remove the most controversial element of the new procedure where an interchange steward must provide the numbers of the players coming on and off the field before the exchange is made. While the decision is not yet final, the AFL met late yesterday with statisticians Champion Data, the group that will again record the interchanges and provide the resources informing the game's governing body as to how long players have spent on and off the playing arena.

CHAIRMAN BACKS COACH IN BIG WAY

St Kilda chairman Greg Westaway wants Ross Lyon to coach for the next 10 years, reports The Herald Sun. Citing continuity as the key to success, Westaway yesterday broke his silence to offer his unconditional support for the embattled coach and the much-discussed game style. "We'd like to see him there for 10 years because that's how you run clubs," Westaway said. "We are 100 per cent behind him. If you change (coaches) every five minutes, you go nowhere. And I'm very adamant about it: he's there to stay."

FEVOLA WILL GET THREE

Brendan Fevola will get the three-year contract he desires, with the Blues determined to keep him off limits to the new Gold Coast franchise, reports The Herald Sun. Carlton president Dick Pratt's assertion on the weekend that the full forward must be given three seasons was seen as robbing the Blues of valuable bargaining power. But Fevola, 27, would be happy with a minimum three-year deal that eliminates him from calculations for a Gold Coast team with access to uncontracted players in 2010. Fevola would become a veteran in the third year of a new contract.

EAGLES DENY KERR WANTS OUT

West Coast chairman Mark Barnaba believes former problem child Daniel Kerr will be part of an Eagles revival despite speculation the star midfielder wants to break his contract, according to The Australian. Kerr is tied to West Coast until the end of next year, but a number of Melbourne clubs say they are reliably informed he wants out and that he has refused to sign a strict core-value agreement with the Eagles. Barnaba was emphatic yesterday that the entire West Coast list had signed the seven-point document, a pledge that several years of repeat poor off-field behaviour was now behind it. Rival club officials describe the rigid way of life at the Eagles as like being in a "concentration camp", an opinion denied by Barnaba. But the chairman of seven months conceded his club still employed strict processes following last year's player behaviour crisis which resulted in West Coast being put on notice by the AFL commission. "It's the price this club had to pay," Barnaba said.

MENTAL SKILLS HELP

Fremantle coach Mark Harvey has played down the need for his players to seek psychological help despite the AFL club's mentality being questioned in recent weeks, reports The West Australian. The Dockers became the first team since St Kilda in 1940 to lose four consecutive matches after leading at three-quarter time when they were overrun by Carlton on Saturday. After that loss, Harvey said his team needed to start "visualising winning" when asked whether the club would call upon psychological help to arrest the team's final-quarter fadeouts. But Harvey believed the issue could be dealt with in other ways. "I was only answering the question (about whether a psychologist was needed) and I mentioned that visually you could perhaps look at winning ... to overcome what we are going through at the moment, that's all," Harvey told 6PR. "If you see what's happening to us at the moment ... you'd certainly consider different opinions, but it's not something that you've got to rely on totally.”

MITCHELL INELIGIBLE FOR BROWNLOW

Hawthorn captain Sam Mitchell is free to play after choosing not to contest a charge of tripping Melbourne's Simon Buckley, putting himself out of the Brownlow Medal race but free to play the Western Bulldogs on Sunday, reports The Age. Mitchell's guilty plea reduced his 125 demerit points to 93.75, but because the initial offence drew more than 100 demerit points, the equal Brownlow favourite is out of the running. Carlton will be without Jarrad Waite this week after the key defender unsuccessfully challenged a striking charge at the AFL Tribunal last night. Waite remains eligible for the Brownlow because the base points for his offence were less than the equivalent of a full game. Mitchell said putting the team first was an easy decision. "To get out of it with a reprimand and get to play on the weekend, I think any player in the competition would take that rather than some individual accolade," he told Channel Nine. "The risk of missing a game of footy, especially at such an important part of the year against such a good, quality club that is going really well, it was a pretty easy decision."

OTTENS GIVEN ALL-CLEAR

Brad Ottens will play against Carlton on Saturday night, but his coach said it will be a month before the ruckman will be anywhere near full capacity, reports The Herald Sun. Mark Thompson has been given the all-clear from his medical staff to play his No. 1 ruckman, who has been sidelined since March with a foot injury. It couldn't come at a better time, with the Cats' first loss ramming home the importance of Ottens to the premier. "The fact is he has trained for another week and hasn't been injured, so that is a really good thing," Thompson said. "He will join main training with the group tomorrow and do limited training on Friday when we train as a group, and then play." Ottens will probably play half the game, with Mark Blake to carry most of the ruck duties.

JABS WON’T DETER RICHO

Little has stood in Matthew Richardson's way this year and Richmond coach Terry Wallace said yesterday that a jarred knee that required a pain-killing injection to play the Dreamtime Game against Essendon would not slow him down either, according to The Age. It certainly did not stop him crashing a goal-square pack early in last Saturday night's game, allowing the ball to spill to Nathan Brown for an easy goal, and Wallace said the big fellow was "as good as gold" as far as fitness went for this week's game against Sydney. Richardson, one of the early favourites for this year's Brownlow Medal, mentioned his knee problem after Saturday night's game, acknowledging he had struggled to recover. Wallace revealed yesterday that his power forward-come-midfielder had needed the injection just before the match started. "He struggled last week — he'd had a problem with his knee for the whole week, he virtually didn't train for the whole week," Wallace said. "He's certainly better this week. Even on the weekend, just when the boys were doing the warm-up before the match, he had to sneak up the race to get another injection into his knee."

SCARLETT THE KEY TO CATS?

Geelong will learn soon whether the Friday night massacre was just the long-postponed dip it had to have, or a portent of increased vulnerability, reasons The Age’s Jake Niall. “To most observers, the outcome said more about Collingwood. But there was one significant game within the game, played between Geelong's Matthew Scarlett — the game's premier defender — and the imposing yet erratic Anthony Rocca. This contest went decisively to the Magpies, in a manner that captured the attention of Geelong's rivals. Scarlett shapes as the most important player in this year's premiership race — a judgement supported by defence-minded former coaches Danny Frawley and Robert Shaw, the latter noting that the full-back is usually the linchpin of a premiership team. Scarlett is, quite simply, the most indispensable player in the benchmark team. Gary Ablett might be as good, maybe even better, but other clubs believe his absence — or curtailment — wouldn't be as debilitating as that of Scarlett, who no longer has Matthew Egan, the injured All-Australian centre half-back, in support.”

IBBOTSON A RISING STAR

Fremantle have taken a positive out of Saturday's narrow loss to Carlton with Garrick Ibbotson earning the Dockers' second AFL Rising Star nomination this year, reports AAP. Ibbotson, 20, was Fremantle's best player in the nine-point loss to the Blues. Ibbotson was taken by the Dockers with pick No.26 in the 2005 national draft and made his senior debut last year. He did not play Australian Rules football until the age of 13 after earlier dabbling in water polo and soccer. "Garrick is a hard-working and talented player who, along with several other of our younger blokes, will form the backbone of Fremantle's future," said Dockers coach Mark Harvey.|

DAVIS BACK IN GOOD BOOKS

A return to senior football could be imminent for Nick Davis after he finally made an impression on the coaching staff with his performances in Sydney's reserves, reports The Age. Davis has played just three senior games this season, twice being dumped to the seconds after struggling with his pressure skills - his tackling and chasing. Dropped after round one, Davis spent three weeks in the reserves, before receiving a reprieve when Barry Hall was suspended, but after just two more senior games he was dropped again, with coach Paul Roos saying he needed a "really good solid month of hard footy and hard training and to get his confidence up". The mercurial forward has spent the past month in the seconds, and in each of the three matches has been named among the team's best. "The first week we probably weren't happy with the way he played in the seconds, even though he was in the bests, he probably wasn't in the best in our eyes," Roos said. "But certainly the last two games, he's definitely played a lot more like the way we have wanted him to play.

HILLE SIGNS FOR TWO MORE

Essendon's No.1 ruckman David Hille has signed a new two-year contract that will keep him with the Bombers until the end of the 2010 season, reports AAP. Hille, 26, has been a rare shining light in an otherwise dismal start to 2008 for Essendon, who currently sit third-last on the ladder having lost their last six games. "David has started off the year really well. He made the Victorian squad (for the Hall of Fame game) and was unlucky not to be selected in the final team," said Essendon's chief operating officer Travis Auld. "As a member of our leadership group, David plays a very important role on and off the field, particularly given the age of our list and the number of younger guys playing senior footy at the moment. He seems to enjoy the challenge of leading our younger players, he turns 27 next month and is nearing 150 games with the club. We expect him to continue to be an important player for us over the next few years and this new contract is a major boost for the club."