AFL chief Gillon McLachlan didn't use the word ugly, but he reckons some games lately have featured unattractive football.
Last Friday's MCG clash between Richmond and Sydney is a case in point.
"There is general consensus in the industry that last Friday night wasn't potentially the best game," McLachlan told FoxFooty's On The Couch program on Monday night.
"Yes there's bad games. But there's a lot of good games too.
"We accept there are parts of it that are unattractive."
McLachlan played down host and Brownlow Medallist Gerard Healy's suggestion that rugby-style rolling mauls were threatening the game's appeal.
"There's isolated examples of that (rolling mauls) in games every now and then," McLachlan said.
"We can pick them out and there's often the same teams playing them. But it evolves.
"There's various forms. It was the flood (sending all 18 players into defence) in 2005-06."
McLachlan replaced Andrew Demetriou as AFL boss earlier this month. It was Demetriou who spoke during the 2005 season of Sydney's unattractive style of play, placing strain on his relationship with then-Swans coach Paul Roos.
Sydney went on to win the grand final later that year.
McLachlan says he's keen to develop a rapport with coaches, for various reasons.
"It's not going to be ... that I somehow think the coaches can solve this," McLachlan said.
"But I want to have a really strong relationship with the coaches.
"They are incredibly influential in our game. Not just on the game style but generally."
McLachlan admits his entry into the top job has been difficult, with ASADA's investigation into Essendon's use of supplements in 2012 causing uncertainty across the league.
ASADA has issued show-cause notices to 34 past and present Essendon players, as legal challenges continue.
"There's some head-winds, there's no doubt about that. There's one big head-wind, this ASADA stuff," McLachlan said.
"At some point potentially the ball comes back to us, but I don't really have a line of sight on when that's going to be.
"I know what was in the interim report. But there's a lot that's going to be relied upon as I understand there's been evidence gathered since then.
"We don't quite know what that evidence is yet."
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