BOTH Richmond coach Terry Wallace and his Geelong counterpart Mark Thompson say they need to get better at managing the AFL's new interchange rules. And Wallace believes the AFL has gone too far in response to Sydney's 19-man indiscretion last month.

Collingwood assistant coach Guy McKenna says the post-it note communication method in use at Telstra Dome on Friday night was confusing and clumsy and Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews also criticised the new system as an unnecessary complication.

McKenna said: "I just don't think we have to process the numbers. I can't see any reason why that has to occur — one bloke comes off, one goes on; does it matter what number and who it is?"

Matthews, buoyed by the win against Carlton, concurred, querying the wisdom of the requirement that teams name the specific players involved in each interchange.

"I would say the big issue seems to be that you've only got 18 (players) on the field," he said.

"It's a very complicated system to get the result.

"If you've got an independent AFL interchange steward that sits there, (he can) simplymake sure that you've got 18 on and if you get more than 18 on, he tells the emergency umpire and you get a free kick against you . . . I never could quite work out why does an interchange steward have to be told that a change is going to take place?"

The AFL fined the Swans $50,000, with $25,000 suspended, after debutant Jesse White ran onto the ground too early in the round-six match against North Melbourne.

After a review of the incident, the league announced that an overhaul of the interchange system would be fully introduced in round nine.

The new system is on trial this weekend, with a free kick to be awarded if a team is found to have 19 men on the field, including when a replacement player enters the playing area before a teammate has crossed the boundary line.

The same penalty will be enforced if a player enters the field before his interchange is approved or doesn't go through the appropriate area.

Wallace was quick to flag his concerns after yesterday's 30-point loss to the Cats, saying he did not think the old interchange system "was that broken in the first place" that it needed a radical overhaul.

"A better solution would have been to talk to somebody, have a chat about it," he said.

"From today's exhibition of it, there would have probably been five goals in the first half given against both sides. We've all got to do it better because it would be pretty ugly for the game if the game needs to be stopped five times . . . and we’re getting five goals kicked from interchange decisions."

Wallace said managing rotations improved in the second half, but he still had concerns about how the system was introduced by the league. "I wonder if we've all had enough involvement in the system. I still wonder why we're sitting here with a new system mid(-season) and the antiquated situation of having to write down numbers . . . why we're sitting here writing numbers hurriedly is still a little bit of a concern to us."

He said the new rules had the potential "to have much more impact on the game" than the system previously in place, which required the captain of the opposing team to call for a head count if he believed there were too many players on the field. "I just get disappointed when all of a sudden, (new rules) are applied and we haven't had any opportunity to discuss it or know whether it's going to work or not.

"I would have loved them (the AFL) to put in a system where they said, 'Let's have a look at this this week and let's all get together next week and have a chat about whether it worked, or whether we think there's value in marching that forward'.

"To me, that would have been a better way to go about it than perhaps the way we’ve gone about it."

Thompson was more accepting of the league's initiative. "We had a few patches there when we struggled a bit," he said.

"I’m not sure if it's the right system or not, but it's the one we've got and we have to adapt."

He said he was confident his coaching staff, players and interchange stewards would learn to work within the rules.

"We have to adapt in the coach's box and downstairs have to just be alert, sharp and make the right decisions, quickly."