SYDNEY Swans coach Paul Roos has an easy solution to ‘fix’ the uncontested football that is becoming prevalent after several AFL coaches employed rolling zone tactics in the NAB Cup.

“I think you just change the rules back to the way they were five years ago, it’s pretty simple,” Roos said. “But I don’t think that will happen.”

The Swans coach, who has been criticised in the past for creating accountable, one-on-one football with frequent stoppages, said any more rule changes needed to be carefully thought through.

“I think unless you really think about the implications of the rule changes, you just go from one problem to the next and that’s what seems to be happening now,” Roos said on Wednesday.

“Having been involved in coaching and playing under (Western Bulldogs coach) Rodney Eade, he was probably unfairly criticised with the flood but the reason why it became hard was because teams had 20 seconds and they… used the ball well by foot and they were able to slice us up.

“Now, you just don’t have that time to be able to do it. That’s lent itself to more teams flooding back and more teams zoning… you’ve got to be careful what you wish for.”

Roos was in no doubt that the recent rule changes had contributed to the rolling zone tactics used in the past 18 months, with particular success by reigning premier Hawthorn.

“Do you want stoppages and one-on-one football, which is what the ‘05 and ‘06 Grand Finals represented, or do you want a zoning type, uncontested [game]?” he said.

“Uncontested football’s gone through the roof in the last two years and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s as a result of the rule changes.

“It’s finally sort of caught up with us and the people who have made the rule changes are saying, how do we stop the zoning?"

Roos predicted that zoning in defence would become more common this season, but there would still be some coaches that employed different strategies.

“I still sense there will be some teams, maybe 50/50, who will still have teams that won’t change dramatically,” he said.

“Obviously [there are] teams that will, so it will be a mixed bag of football and it will be interesting to see where it all ends up.”