THE AFL community has a tendency to overreact. Last month, we had a round of football that produced a draw between Richmond and the Bulldogs, a bad bounce that favoured North Melbourne in a close game against Collingwood and an ugly sledge directed at Andrew Lovett picked up on an umpire's microphone.

By Monday, the chorus was deafening. The AFL must ban the bounce, fix the draw and eliminate miked-up umpires from the broadcast game. But the chorus died as soon as the ball was (correctly) bounced to start the next scintillating round of football.

And the football has been scintillating this season. As it was again on the weekend despite the ridiculous overreaction from a minority of clubs that were forced to start controlling their interchange benches and complained — if you can believe this — about having to write player numbers on notes before their interchanges were executed.

Some problems in football this season have demanded a reaction. One was the poorly placed signage covering an unpadded fence that caused Barry Hall to break his wrist at ANZ Stadium. Another were the timekeeping errors that could have changed the results of two close games.

And the third was the slackening of interchange procedures that have led on three occasions this season to 19 players spending significant time on the arena. On the third occasion — in the Kangaroos' draw against Sydney — the Swans' error could have handed the club two points and had the Kangaroos stuck to the letter of the law and demanded a head count, Sydney's score would have gone back to zero.

The AFL had to act and, to its credit, it acted quickly. When the Hall-less Swans returned to Homebush on Sunday, the fence was padded and the advertising signage adjusted. At every AFL game at the weekend, a timekeeper was electronically wired to the umpires and to hear each time the whistle blew time on and a third timekeeper sat in each box. As far as we could uncover, no errors occurred.

The competition has also moved to stop clubs abusing the interchange bench but pragmatically and radically reduced the penalty to a free kick and a 50-metre penalty. Every club experienced some teething problems with the changes but most accepted they needed to get better at controlling player movement on and off the field.

But not all clubs, and notably the Swans, who it could be argued caused the AFL to act so quickly in the first place. "I think it's a bit embarrassing," Paul Roos complained, "when you watch games on the weekend and you see five on the interchange bench and six on the interchange bench … I think that's just as embarrassing as having 19 versus 18, to be honest."

No, Paul, having 19 men on the ground is not embarrassing, it's cheating, whether intentional or not. And if the Swans muck up again next weekend, they might find themselves fined the other half of the $50,000 that was suspended after the North Melbourne mistake.

How hard can it be? The process of informing the interchange steward of an interchange is not new. The only difference is that the procedure is now being correctly policed and clubs must now notify the steward before the change is made and not hand over the paperwork in retrospect.

Clearly, this had become an area in which the clubs — that have been very vocal in demanding professionalism of the AFL in recent weeks — had relaxed. So much so that no one stopped Jesse White from charging on to the ground in the dying minutes of the North game.

"We thought it was easy to understand and easy to do," said Geelong's football boss Neil Balme. "Certainly, it's more time-consuming and more complex but our blokes were pretty happy with it.

"Our coaches approached it in a pretty calm manner and made sure they didn't change their mind once a change call was made."

Balme observed that the pressure on club interchange stewards would continue the steady move from unpaid volunteers handling match-day duties and, given what the coaches expect from both their players and the competition itself, this is not a bad thing.

Some Melbourne media scoffed at Adelaide for practising the procedural change last week but only transgressing once as a result. "I'm not sure whether this was about 19 men on the ground and that slowing the game down was a byproduct," Crows chief executive Steven Trigg remarked.

"It's an education as much as anything. Do we have a problem with it? No."

Leigh Matthews, who criticised the change on Saturday night, had significantly softened his stand by yesterday. Our prediction is that most clubs will curb their hysteria and follow suit.

"It's the only game I know in the world where you've got to hand over a bit of paper before you're actually allowed on the playing surface," Roos lamented.

Actually, Paul, in soccer, you have to wait until play has stopped completely.