REVIVING the pre-season premiership isn't on the horizon, but the AFL is open to tweaking the NAB Challenge format in the wake of the bizarre finish to Richmond and Port Adelaide's hit-out on Thursday night.

Club coaches have weighed into the discussion after a decimated Tigers side had just 15 players on the field late in their loss to the Power once Damien Hardwick pulled his stars off the ground to protect them for round one.

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has called for the League to bring back a pre-season prize to give games meaning after heated debate about the NAB Challenge over the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, Power mentor Ken Hinkley believes three pre-season matches is too many and said scrapping the NAB Challenge altogether and playing more home-and-away games would make the imbalanced fixture fairer.

Although the League's football operations boss Mark Evans was confident the current format suited most clubs, he said the AFL would listen to clubs' feedback.

"If they believe that preparation can be done in fewer games, we would deliver that," Evans said.

"If they felt that one match was enough, we could deliver that. If they felt the season could be extended forward and have no matches of preparation, we could consider that.

"Last year we asked the clubs what they wanted. They felt they needed two games to be able to prepare each player, but they might need three matches to be able to put two games of preparation into as many players as they need."

Not since the Brisbane Lions defeated Carlton in 2013 has a trophy been awarded to the victor of the pre-season series, and Evans intimated it was unlikely to make a comeback.

"I think there was some great advantages in that system around attraction and fighting for something. But we also saw that not many clubs fought that hard for it," he said.

"For the moment, we've had very little complaint out of this structure, it generally delivers what we need as a code and what clubs need for preparation."

Evans was on the boundary line towards the end of the Tigers-Power match and didn't believe frustrated Richmond coach Hardwick's conduct was untoward.

He said the match couldn't be shortened given Richmond had fit players still on the bench, with AFL rules only needing between 14 and 18 players on the field at any given time for both sides to continue.

"There are provisions to cancel a match and to shorten a match, or to abandon a match," Evans said.

"That sits with me and last night, when we had a full contingent of people fit and available to play in the match, there was no reason to pull the pin on it, I didn't think.

"I've spoken to both Richmond and Port Adelaide this morning. I think we agree that it could’ve been handled differently.

"There's a time-honoured tradition of resting players forward and wherever possible we thought that was a more appropriate outcome.

"If you (clubs) want complete control over a pre-season match, that's called an intraclub practice match."

Meanwhile, Evans said AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan was "frustrated" by Ticketek's failure to operate smoothly again on Friday, with McLachlan set to address the issue in a video to fans.

"As you know we had ‘fee-free Friday’ today following the mishaps of last week where the system crashed," Evans said.

"I've seen Gill today has spent a lot of time on this with (MCC chief exeutive) Stephen Gough.

"They are equally frustrated and disappointed. Despite the high volume of people who seem to have gotten through, there have been further issues.

"So stand by for that one."