Each AFL team dresses twenty-two players for a match - 18 starters, 3 bench players ("interchange"), and one substitute. In other words, 21 play from the word go, and one serves to replace an injured player.
Gold Coast head coach Rodney Eade, whose tenure with the Suns has begun with a shocking five losses in six games, has expressed his concern that Gold Coast will not be able to field a full team - he only has twenty players who are able to practice at this point. If his feeder team was playing this weekend (they have a bye), they would have to forfeit because they're going to be loaning the senior side too many players to leave enough for themselves!
The last numbers produced this weekend by the AFL itself imply that the Suns have more players injured than NOT injured!
"The list of those unavailable already includes the likes of Gary
Ablett, Jaeger O'Meara, David Swallow, Nick Malceski, Jack Martin and
the suspended Steven May. Eade said it could be argued the club was missing 12 of its best 15 players."
What a predicament! For a team expected to make its first finals ever this year, this injury ravaged season has been nothing short of disasterous.
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