Ireland team member Colm Begley, who played 30 matches for the Brisbane Lions and St Kilda from 2006-2009, told the Irish Times on Wednesday that rule changes after the fiery 2006 series had robbed the game of crowd-pleasing physicality and passion.
Banning the shepherd was one of the results of a review into the 2006 series, while players were warned ahead of this year's contest that they would be yellow or red-carded if they engaged in a push and shove.
Speaking in Dublin on Wednesday, Stokes said he would love to see the shepherd reintroduced.
"I think our game is built on being physical and trying to intimidate players and get players with shepherds and hard tackles," Stokes said.
"We'd love to be able to do it, but at the moment the rules are that we're not allowed to.
"I'd love to have a bit of physicality in the game and a bit of push and shove, but we got warned before the series that if there was any of that you'd get yellow or red carded."
Stokes believed it was up to the Australians to adapt to the rules now in place, saying he did not believe they were stacked too heavily in favour of the Irish.
The Geelong star said the most disappointing aspect of Australia's first Test loss last Saturday night was being out-tackled by an Irish team whose players are not permitted to tackle in Gaelic football.
"It's extremely disappointing when a team that doesn't tackle for a living out-tackled us in that first half," Stokes said.
"You can handle turnovers and errors with the ball, but (a lack of) effort and intensity around the footy you can't.
"It doesn't take any talent to execute that and we came in at quarter-time and we all knew that we were playing pretty badly, but we knew that our tackling and intensity wasn't as good as it should have been and needed to be when you're representing Australia."
Meanwhile, Stokes was pleased by news former long-time Geelong teammates Paul Chapman and Josh Hunt had found new AFL homes at Essendon and Greater Western Sydney respectively.
The two-time premiership player joked he was looking forward to a bit of niggle with Chapman when they crossed paths on the field next year.
"He told us at the best and fairest that if he got us behind play with a jab or a punch behind the head that he still loved us," Stokes said.
"So I'm looking forward to playing against 'Chappy'. He's an angry old man, so I can't wait to stir him up and rev him up a little bit."
Twitter: @AFL_Nick
