Four on the bench in Hampden league footy? Pros, cons weighed up

The arguments for? More protection against injuries impacting games and swinging momentum, showcasing talent, being mindful of loads on players.

The arguments against? It hurts clubs already struggling for depth in reserves, which is a significant enough reason to consider on its own given the fact some clubs are struggling to get a seconds side on the park for a whole host of reasons.

This issue is tough as there are very legitimate arguments on both sides of the fence.

South Warrnambool was keen to get an extra player on its bench for its clash against North Warrnambool Eagles on Saturday.

Both the Hampden league and North Warrnambool Eagles said no.

Roosters coach Mat Battistello said the fourth man would've eased physical pressure on players on the back of a three-week coronavirus-enforced break.

He said the club would be mindful of "the boys' loads" with wet weather forecast and interrupted ability to train and condition players due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

"It's certainly going to be different. Because we haven't trained for three weeks we'll be pretty mindful of the boys' loads," Battistello said.

"We wanted an extra player for that particular reason and we weren't able to get it through North or the league executive. That was disappointing because I thought it was an opportunity for us and North to showcase one other player given other major comps do it.

"We'll be really mindful about how we recover from here. We've got through but without having to train for a couple of weeks we'll see how the boys pull up and go from there."

Battistello makes a valid point. That said, the Roosters do have a wealth of available players in their reserves and under 18s and have plenty of depth available so bringing an extra player up wouldn't be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Port Fairy coach Winis Imbi said his club was also in favour of having 22 players on the park in a bid for extra insurance on injuries.

Its situation was different to South in that it doesn't have an absolute abundance of reserves and under 18 players but Imbi said the benefit would outweigh the negatives for his club.

"It's for a variety of reasons that it happens for us but for example, we were playing with 17 on the weekend at one stage," he said.

"We probably shouldn't have had two or three out there. Ideally you would've put them on ice and rested them."

North Warrnambool Eagles mentor Adam Dowie said his club simply didn't have the depth of numbers to support the concept on Saturday.

"We couldn't afford to have four on the interchange, we needed three. Our under 18s are struggling for numbers, our reserves are struggling for numbers," he said.

"It was just a number thing, whereas South have stacks of reserves and under 18s."

Dowie said North Warrnambool Eagles were scheduled to train indoors on Tuesday night in a bid to avoid taxing conditions in the wet.

"We'll look after them and be able to get in out of the rain and off the soft ground and stuff. People might say 'you've got to train in the conditions you play in'," he said.

"Well, we trained indoors (this past) Wednesday night, we trained Thursday night... If I said for Tuesday, righto boys we're going to go outside and train (in the wet?), how are they going to be?

"I've always been a bit of a believer of, if you play well in the wet, we'll look after you during the week and that's what we do. If we'd come out and just been terrible in the wet (on Saturday against South) you might be going 'mmm, I don't know' but the boys were terrific."

Ultimately the argument of having four on the bench is one of idealism versus realism.

For some clubs, the reality is that they have the numbers to comfortably put four players on the bench of their senior side while for others already battling against country footy challenges like reserves player shortages and junior issues, it's unrealistic. One for the powers at be to ponder.

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