The AFL has admitted to an interchange blunder that cost Richmond a goal during their Friday night win over Sydney.
League operations manager Mark Evans said the penalty against the Tigers was a terrible outcome.
Richmond were penalised when Shane Edwards returned to the field from a concussion assessment.
AFL officials ruled that Edwards had not been off the ground for the full 20 minutes - but the Tigers were adamant they had received the green light for him to return.
Richmond forward Tyrone Vickery lost his shot on goal because of the mistake.
Sydney's Nick Smith had a shot instead at the other end, but his kick went out of bounds on the full.
"I'm really disappointed with the way we handled that," Evans said of the incident.
"The interchange official felt they were answering the question `is the player allowed to come back on once cleared by the doctor' and said `yes'.
"They needed to give the information - `yes, but you need to wait for the 20 minutes to expire'.
"When they saw the player step up to to go onto the ground, they should have done everything within their power to make sure he didn't."
Evans said the problem continued after Edwards was back on the field.
"It was even very clunky and clumsy the way it was played out between the interchange officials and the umpires," he said.
"(It was) a terrible outcome for the AFL we put our hand up for that - we need to be better than that."
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