Half of the AFL's coaches were against the outlawing of the third man up at ruck contests, according to league football operations manager Mark Evans.
It was announced on Wednesday that third men up at stoppages would be penalised from season 2017.
The decision was met with criticism from some of footy's brightest stars, including Hawthorn captain Luke Hodge and Brownlow medallist Patrick Dangerfield.
Evans said the 18 coaches were consulted before the rule change and revealed they were split down the middle on whether it should have been introduced.
"In the coaches' ranks this was a 50-50 support or not support for this change and it then comes down to if you've got that then it really is up to the league, the officiating body, to make a call on what it thinks is going to be good for the game," Evans told SEN radio on Thursday.
"There will be some naysayers about it, I get that. There's about five or six rucks on each list and there's a lot of midfielders and smaller guys so I don't think it'll be something where we're going to get roundly applauded for but equally you'll get into the game next year and I don't think it will be a major problem."
Evans concluded that the third man up provided the game with little to no benefit, despite admitting he executed a "beautiful clearance" every 5-6 times he was utilised.
Evans was confident the AFL's latest rule change would cause few issues and hoped it would allow the game's bigger and stronger ruckmen to flourish.
"For every time you see a beautiful clearance from a third man up, you'll see another four or five where there's a third man up or fourth man up and the ball does nothing so really it was no different to just allowing two rucks to have a go at it," Evans said.
"We had a lot of clumsiness around the officiating of blocking the third man up (too), then we've had some injuries and some wear-down impact on rucks as well. We think it can clear up a bit of that for us and also then maybe give us returning advantage to the bigger leaping or stronger tall ruckman."
Evans said the rule of umpires asking teams to nominate their ruckman for a stoppage had largely been made redundant by the ability of a third man to compete.
"It sort of seems pointless that we say, 'which two of you are the rucks in the contest', and then third man or fourth man can just come and do what they like," Evans said.
"I think it will clear up a little bit of that, I'm hoping that it will be easier to officiate, I'm hoping that it will help the rucks get less wear-and-tear injury and the occasional more catastrophic injury than that."
Meanwhile, Evans said the clubs would be consulted over the summer with regards to the range of distance from the goal face a player would be penalised under the stricter interpretation of the deliberate rushed behind rule.