Essendon coach, and the AFL’s former general manager of football, Brad Scott said he would like to see the league’s substitute rule scrapped in favour of five players on the bench.

After his side’s win against GWS on Easter Sunday at Marvel Stadium, Scott said a rule change to naming 23 players as opposed to 22 and a later sub “just makes sense”.

“It just makes sense but, having worked at the AFL, the lawyers would hate that because they’d have to rewrite the entire rule book because the rule book is written around 22 players,” said Scott.

“So, they have to change a lot of things, but at the end of the day, it’s doable to change it, and I think it’s logical because, you know, having to name Trent Cotchin as omitted … when he’s not omitted, just doesn’t feel right.”

Richmond’s former captain Cotchin was ‘managed’ for his side’s twilight game against the Western Bulldogs over the weekend, along with forward veteran Jack Riewoldt. But Cotchin was ultimately used as the Tigers’ sub - the same role occupied the following day by former Bombers skipper Dyson Heppell against the Giants.

Scott, who held the role of general manager football at the AFL before taking up the head coaching position at Essendon, said changing the medical sub to a tactical one was discussed during his time at the AFL.

“If I can tell you that we put out submissions, or requested submissions or club preferences, and my view, my strong view, is that the clubs would come back and say no, we prefer five on the bench, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case,” said Scott.

“[A] majority of clubs said they wanted four and sub, which surprised me, but this is the difficulty when you ask clubs, because they are going to look at it – quite rightly – through their personal club lens.

“Some teams feel like they’ve got a really good running team, they don’t want that diluted by having five on the bench.”