The AFL’s most experienced coach, Kevin Sheedy, wants a return to four interchange players but a cap on the number of times they can be used in a match.

The Greater Western Sydney mentor says a cap of 80 or 100 rotations per club per match would help restrict flooding or pressing tactics and make the code more attractive.

And despite being the league’s longest-serving current coach, the four-time Essendon premiership coach said the AFL should not be swayed too much by his colleagues as they strived to improve the sport.

“To me it’s about having the greatest game in Australia and the greatest game on the planet,” Sheedy told Fox Footy’s On the Couch program on Monday night.

“Whatever you’ve got to do, do it and don’t let the coaches stop you, because the (AFL) Commission run the game, not the coaches.”

The AFL last season reduced the number of interchange players from four to three, plus a substitute.

They trialled a further reduction in this year’s pre-season competition, to two interchange players and two substitutes.

But Sheedy said reducing interchange players would mean fewer opportunities for younger players, as well as forcing older players out of the league earlier.

“I don’t think two and two will work, but you’ve got to try things, the (pre-season competition’s) there to try things,” he said.

“I’m personally a coach that would have four on the bench and I’d cap rotations.”

Clubs regularly have 150 or more rotations in a match, which Sheedy said was too much.

“We don’t need the flooding and we don’t need the pressing necessarily,” he said.

“… We must keep (the game) attractive.

“So I would tend to think that we would have obviously less rotations, maybe (capped at) 100 or 80, we can balance that out and argue and debate that.

“But in the end I think in the next couple of years, I think to make sure that we have the best players on the ground more often, I think that we should keep looking at four on the bench and less rotations.”