COACH Paul Roos says a 17-round home-and-away competition would be the best scenario for the AFL, but he knows that won’t happen.

Roos said with the introduction of 90 interchange rotations next year, it was only going to help the experienced teams and put further pressure on players.

He added that fatigue, injury lists and resting players were all issues associated with a 22-round season, plus pre-season matches and finals.

“My view is – and it’s not going to happen – but a 17-round competition would be fantastic, but you’ve just signed TV rights for $2.5 billion,” he said at AAMI Park on Friday.

“Someone told me yesterday that 25 per cent of AFL players are injured right now and are unavailable for selection.

“Carlton has got 25 to pick from and our seconds play on the weekend and we’ve got 10 players playing in that competition.

“Statistics tell us that we’re making the competition even harder and we bring in 90 interchange, so something is clearly amiss.

“We’re all talking about the finals teams resting players – not young teams, but we’re talking about experienced teams resting players going into finals, so something’s clearly wrong.”

Meanwhile, Roos said he simply wants his team to finish off the season strongly, with its final round against GWS at Etihad Stadium on Sundau.

“From a coaching point of view, we want to finish off the year playing the sort of footy that’s going to take us into the future,” he said.