One might expect the Essendon coach to feel the most hard done by after his side was forced to play the entire final quarter against Richmond on Saturday with just 19 fit men.
Essendon lost the match by just four points.
But instead of complaining and calling for an increase in the number of players allowed on the interchange, the Bombers coach seemed happy enough if the game remained a contest of 22 v 22.
“In my mind it’s a war of attrition; an AFL season, it’s a journey,” Knights said.
“If they want to put an extra one on, put one on and make it 23 and be done with it.
“But you’ll get four injuries when you’ve got 23 and you’ll have 19 and they’ll say ‘well, you couldn’t use your rotations’.”
Knights said he would be happy to increase the total number of players involved per match but said he didn’t believe a lack of manpower costing teams matches was a regular occurrence.
“If we’re going to put an extra one on I haven’t got an issue with that,” he said.
“Put an extra one on and have 23 and just be done with it but I’m not into this worrying too much about ‘it’s going to cost you this or cost you that’ because there’s fate, sometimes luck.”
As a counter argument for increasing numbers, Knights said many injuries were unavoidable.
“We’ve [also] had a lot of trauma injuries in the last six or eight weeks … you can’t do anything about those things,” he said.
“With six or eight minutes to go, if we had have taken our opportunities at a few play phase times, we might have got that game, so yeah I haven’t got an issue.”
