Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse is hoping his club will not be the first to fall foul of the AFL's new interchange rules, after admitting to chaotic scenes on the Magpies bench when the new system was trialled last weekend.

Malthouse, who added his voice to the growing chorus questioning the rule requiring interchanges to be preceded by written notification, said Collingwood had their teething problems during the trial run.

The Magpies and Geelong will be the first clubs to face the prospect of free kicks and 50m penalties for infringements in their match at the MCG on Friday night.

"We're first cab off the rank, it's going to be a very interesting procedure if there's a message by the emergency umpire to the central umpire to say someone's mucked up," Malthouse said.

"You can't have as many shepherders as we had (stopping players from entering the playing field too soon), we had more blocks last week off the ground than we did on the ground.

"... the eagerness of players to get on the ground sometimes has to be stifled and we've got to be smart about it."

After Richmond coach Terry Wallace on Wednesday said it would be wrong for players to lose a game because a club official wrote the incorrect player number on a piece of paper, Malthouse agreed there had to be a better way.

"Without knocking it to death, there are a lot of opportunities to change things around when you view something first up and maybe (there should be) a microchip," he said.

"Who needs the paperwork and why can't it be done electronically?

"If it's one on, one off ... do we really care whether Didak's replaced Davis or Medhurst replaced Davis? It shouldn't really be a concern.

"I don't know what (the AFL) do with their slips of paper ... surely the AFL have got to go through it and find out what can we eliminate that is not necessary information."

But he said unless the AFL heeded calls to simplify the procedure, clubs had no choice but to live with it.

"I don't think there's any escaping the fact that we're all going to be angry if there's mistakes made, there's no question about that, but the fact is there's a rule in place, whether we like it or whether we don't," he said.

"There's a lot of rules I don't particularly like, but if we break the rule we suffer the consequences."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP