Interchange: juniors, senior women and community men competitions only

Going back to the beginning one of the purposes of interchange was to increase the participation rate and is meant to ensure all players named in the squad have the opportunity for equal playing time. At the same time interchange is not supposed to be part of a trophy winning strategy.

The process for interchange is the same as normal substitutions. In other words, there must be a stoppage in play before the interchange can take place. Teams are allowed multiple interchanges during the course of a game.

Referees have been instructed that :-

• if a player is not ready to come on when the coach calls for an interchange the referee will NOT stop the game.
• If a player leaves the field because of injury or exhaustion and the coach calls for an interchange if the other player is not ready to come on the game should not be held up.
• If the referee believes that the coach is using the interchange rule to deliberately waste time that coach should be asked to leave the technical area and charged for a breech of the code of conduct.
• If the referee believes a player is guilty of abusing the interchange rule to waste time then the player should shown the yellow card.