Indicators predicted the demise of the depleted Hawks and Crows. Wrong!

HAWTHORN was in trouble at Telstra Dome on Saturday. The Hawks had trailed North Melbourne all day and, going into the last quarter, were down to barely 20 fit players. They could not win; all the indications from the bank of computers, meters and monitors that every AFL club now utilises would have said so.

The next day, Adelaide was in even more strife. Showdown shenanigans had reduced the Crows to 19 players and it was barely half-time at AAMI Stadium.

In the coach's box, every light must have been blinking, every alert sounding. With so few players, the Crows could not make the necessary number of interchanges to keep the team fresh, to match it with constantly refreshed Port Adelaide, to kick more goals than Port. The Crows could not win.

Twice in two days, the popular modern cause for more interchange players was surely strengthened. Perhaps it would simply mean two or three more players, as frequently advocated by Kevin Sheedy. Perhaps it would be a combination of interchange players and substitutes, as proposed by Terry Wallace and endorsed — cautiously — by Leigh Matthews.

In the maddening swarm to and from the interchange bench, football had become 22 versus 22, Matthews had said the previous week. So, implicitly, to lose one or two because of incapacity was almost always fatal. The loose man was as valuable as ever in football. It was just that now, he was likely to be girding his loins on the bench.

But in this clamour, something has been missed. Coaches are control freaks. They have to be; it is always their jobs that are first on the line. Coaches love stoppages; they can manage stoppages like puppeteers. They love the countdown clock and want one on the scoreboard at every ground; it takes away one unknown. They love technology; it gives them oversight of every last heartbeat of every player.

They have grown to love the interchange bench. Numbers of rotations per match are quoted now as if they are achievements in themselves (though when Collingwood set the new record of 110 against the Brisbane Lions a fortnight ago, it was somehow overlooked that the Magpies lost the game).

A coach wants one of what every other coach has: dollars, training facilities, medicos, draft picks. Mostly, they get them. Incidentally, it's one and only one of everything: some who use the interchange bench less than others want a limit enforced on all.

Coaches complain that they are not heeded when it comes to making and interpreting rules such as those governing interchange. But coaches, and their clubs, are a sectional body, an interest group, one of many with a perspective on the game, and by definition, far from the widest. Their job is to win, by the most expedient means. They might be idealists in principle, but they are killjoys in practice.

Rules and interpretations must be made for the sake of the game at large. Spectators are foremost. I believe that by and large, spectators enjoy three aspects. One is winning; in this, they are with the coaches. Another is the spectacle.

The third is the element of the unknown. They thrill to the drama when all is on the line and success and failure are determined by forces that no number of wires and laptops can measure and analyse, forces that the players themselves can feel but not name, forces that do not have a name.

They love it when the game moves beyond the number of pre-season miles in a player's legs, the viability of the gameplan, the science of the coach, to a place where only heart, intuition and inspiration matter.

To win a game when every indication on every screen, clipboard and scoreboard says that you must is admirable in a professional sort of way. To win when all the signs say you cannot, and for that matter when all football sense says so, too, is heroic.

On Saturday, clipped wings notwithstanding, Hawthorn kicked six goals to North's one in the final quarter to win gloriously. On Sunday, Adelaide — decimated in the Roman sense — held on, grimly and bravely, to beat Port.

The Hawks made only 13 interchanges in the last quarter, the Crows scarcely 20 in the second half. In one sense, science went out the window. In another, it mattered even more, for not a moment nor a move could be wasted by either coach, nor a step or breath by any player. It made these victories for the annals, not just the ledger.