North Melbourne’s High Performance Manager, Jona Segal, believes cutting the half-time break in half next season is a step too far.

Although he believes the players “will adapt and cope”, he says the move is too drastic in the early stages.

“Ten minutes isn’t a terrible outcome. The players will cope,” Segal told North Media.

“But why not go to 15 minutes, then slowly come down to 10 minutes over the course of a few years?

“Cutting recovery time by 50 per cent is pretty substantial. It’s not that 20 minutes is perfect, it’s when you change the magnitude by so much, it raises concerns.”

Segal says there’s no perfect period that equates to the optimal recovery time, and more research is needed.

“It’s worth considering that the current 20 minutes time frame is arbitrary,” Segal stated.

“Physiologically, there’s no science to say that 20 minutes is the gold standard for a half-time break in AFL or that length of time will to optimise players’ recovery for the second half.

“No one knows why we came to 20 minutes in the first place. But regardless, cutting it by half is a big change.”

The impact on players remains to be seen.

“The game might slow down a bit or the players will adjust and the game won’t slow at all. It remains to be seen and we haven’t had the chance to test it,” he added.

“There’s potentially a higher degree of fatigue, but there were the same concerns about reducing interchange numbers.” 

If the AFL makes the change to shorten game times, Segal said the cub will need to reassess the way the long break is used.

“Ultimately from a physical standpoint they’ll recover, but it will change what we can do in that break,” he said.

“I’m not sure you’d even default to going back down into the rooms, just because it’s half-time. We will have to revise what we do, obviously. That might mean cutting out the second on-field warm-up completely.”