ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig firmly believes it is an obligation of AFL coaches to work towards teaching and playing a style of football that is attractive to supporters.

Following a week of debate and mud slinging in the wake of the St Kilda-Hawthorn match at the MCG, in which only seven goals were scored to three-quarter time, Craig said he did not feel either Ross Lyon or Alistair Clarkson did anything seriously wrong.

However he did suggest that a coach's prime concern - the winning of football matches - needed to be leavened by consideration for the attractiveness of the game.

"Certainly at our club we feel like we've got a responsibility to play a style of footy we think our supporters find attractive," he said.

"There are times when we would be questioned on that - when we slow the play down.

"But in general we do have an obligation to do that. Purely from a coaching philosophy, I believe I've got an obligation to make sure the style of footy we play hopefully is reasonably attractive."

Craig himself has faced criticism for game-style decisions in the past, most notably after taking too long to revert to man-on-man football against Richmond in the 2006 "Mexican stand-off" at Telstra Dome.

In terms of preventing the game from becoming too defence-oriented, Craig's suggestion was not to coaches but to the AFL's rules committee, advocating change that clubs would then work around.

"It's probably not dissimilar to the fall-out we had from the game against Richmond last year, I can understand why there'd be a lot of comment and debate about it," he said.

"As far as I know, I don't believe the coaches broke any rules, so what do we do?

"They were playing within the rules, and if you don't like it the way it is, you need to change the rules because coaches dictate the game - as in the style of game - based on the rules."