AGE alone does not explain why Robert Harvey is not the player he was when he won his Brownlow Medals. His game, like The Game, is different. Both have evolved.

Harvs was, and is, a merciless runner. At his prime, one of his great assets was his pace, as well as the fact he could just run all day and grind his opponents into the ground. But rotations have changed that. Now, when opposition teams think Harvs is getting on top, they just bring on another fresh player. So he has had to learn to change his game and become more of an impact player.

If you go back and look at one of his games when he won his Brownlows, it is very different to the game he plays now. Partly that is because he is older but also it is because he has worked out how to adapt his game. Fortunately, he is such a great player he was able to evolve and still be an important part of the side.

I think Harvs is a good example of why you let the game grow, evolve and adapt and not jump in to make changes for it. The good players, like the good coaches, will always find ways to adapt and survive. The game now is not a war of attrition in the way it was — it is a burst game. You get in, do your work and get off.

But the bench is not just about resting. It is used as a tactic to shake a tag. You can pull yourself off the ground to lose an opponent and bring someone on to mix things up.

I know that with the pace of the game now you need those regular breaks on the bench because with the midfielders' job being to push hard into defence as well as deep forward, you simply can't sustain the effort required to play without a regular spell on the pine.

I know Leigh Matthews said it can cause headaches for coaches trying to work out match-ups but it also creates confusion for players on the ground. The players can get lost with who they are supposed to be on at times so you need to regularly work it out at stoppages.

A coach will try to swing in a quicker bloke at times, such as an Eddie Betts or Aaron Davey to someone such as myself or Josh Carr, so you have to make sure you mix it up on the ground and avoid a mis-match. At centre bounces, we will always have a conversation about who is going to take who to make sure we are accountable.

I can understand Luke Power's comments about capping rotations because you want to keep those one-on-one battles but I'm more of a mind to believe that, like Harvs evolving, the game should be allowed to find its own answer.

It's worth noting that despite rotations, and despite the concerns of flooding a few years ago, the points scored, or average points a game, have not really varied in the past 10 years.

People have argued that with more interchanges there might be more goals but points scored have stayed relatively stable. The game is in a pretty good state and I think coaches have evolved with the game as much as they have made it evolve.

The Terry Wallace idea of replacing injured players has some merit and should be looked at because there is no doubt going one or two down in a game is a big disadvantage. Still, it wouldn't be great to be one of those emergency players sitting on the bench unsure if you are even going to get on.