Adelaide plans to rest its star midfielders in forward line Patrick Dangerfield could cause headaches for opposition defenders this season. ADELAIDE has devised a range of strategies to protect the Crows from a predicted rise in gut running in the AFL this season - and fireproof them as AFL House is looking at ways to rein in interchange rotations. As much as the laws of the game committee seek to slow down the game to prevent congestion around the ball, coaches will continue to seek an edge in running circles around the opposition. And in the cyclical world of football, it is an old favourite who is part of the solution: the midfielder who is resting in the forward pocket. Assistant coach Mark Bickley said the clubs are likely to rely more heavily on on-field rotations this year, both to weatherproof them for the looming rule changes surrounding the interchange and to find more efficient ways to use the interchange. It is one of many potential tweaks to the game Adelaide is looking out for -- what other clubs will do to their games and what the Crows can do to find another edge. "As every team does, we've been looking at where the game finished up last year and start looking a bit of where it might be going," Bickley said. You try to stay ahead of the curve instead of reacting to what everybody else is doing. Generally, what can tend to happen, is that somebody has great success with one game style and so people try to copy that game style. But the teams at the top, just when the others have that game style down pat, they move on to the next phase. So the teams that are copying are always behind. But most clubs are pretty good at this, sitting down at the end of the year, sitting down at the end of the year and looking at how they played, where they see the game going and then backing themselves to try to predict what will happen and develop a game style that suits that.