Essendon coach Mark Thompson does not expect the new interchange cap for 2014 to have a significant impact upon his side.

As part of a number of rule changes for the 2014 home and away season each team will have an interchange limit of 120 changes.

Thompson is not fazed by the introduction of a limit on rotations.

“I don’t think it will make a massive difference, we are going to have to cut down by about ten changes for the game,” Thompson said.

“We do some training on getting players to come on and off the ground themselves as the one runner change will probably have more of an impact than the interchange.

“Trying to get people off the ground is going to be tough because some players just keep running away from the runner.”

The Bombers have done significant work on their ball movement during the pre-season in order to have greater efficiency moving forward.

Thompson said another key focus of the club’s pre-season training had been getting numbers to every contest on the ground.

“Wherever the ball goes we want to have an Essendon person, we want to out number, so that we have somewhere to move the ball,” he said.

“It is about trying to get people set up early, knowing where the ball is going to go so they are in position for the first, second or even the third possession.”

“A big part of our training this pre-season is teaching people where to run.”

“It is no good being an athlete being able to run 15kms a game if you don’t know where to run, knowing where to run is much more important.”

Essendon kicks off its NAB Challenge campaign against Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium on Monday night.

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