PAUL Crarey does not believe the decision to reduce the number of interchanges available to teams during games from 10 to eight will deliver benefits.

The rule change for 2019 has been implemented in Super League along with the Betfred Championship and League One, with the RFL seeking to emphasise “the attritional nature of the contest, rewarding the fittest and most mobile players, and providing additional attacking opportunities for the most skilful.”

However, Raiders head coach Crarey is in no doubt the part-time teams will be left worse off by only being able to make eight interchanges from the four players named on the bench and that it will increase the risk of injuries for players.

“To me, I don’t see the reasoning behind it,” said Crarey. “If you want fatigue as a major factor, it’s only going to affect the part-time teams, which is half of this division.

“These lads have got to go to work, so you’re leaving them out there and it means lads playing with injuries because they don’t want to let the team down. We always sit with one sub for the remainder of the game in case you get injuries, but we’re not going to be able to do that now.

“You’re going to have lads playing busted and leaving them out there for long minutes. To me, it’s not going to make much difference going from 10 to eight.

“I just think with how quick the game is and the hard grounds, I definitely would have stayed with 10, but nobody has consulted us about it. I think the game is tough enough without reducing the number of substitutions.”

Crarey knows from Barrow’s own experiences last year how much the intense nature of the Championship can take out of a side, with the Raiders regularly suffering numerous injuries in a single game.

Another effect he sees the new interchange rules having is the sport at professional level becoming less diverse in terms of the type of players teams field.

Crarey believes it could well spell the end for impact players such as prop Brad Brennan, who was used to great effect for short spells off the bench for the Raiders during his time with the club.

“Brad Brennan was one of them and was outstanding for 10 or 15 minutes,” said Crarey. “Are you going to carry someone like that if you leave them out there when they juice out?

“I don’t want the game to become clinical and just for the fastest kids or the biggest, strongest athletes. Our division is not about that, it’s about being tough and different characters in the game.

“We’ve got a few of those in the Championship and there are different styles.”