AFL great Robert Walls has called for club runners to be benched if they abuse their role during matches.
Walls made his comments to ESPN after witnessing Greater Western Sydney's runner, Nick Maxwell, remain on the field for extended periods of time during the Giants' loss to Richmond at the MCG on Sunday.
The Carlton premiership player and coach said the AFL needed to act after watching Maxwell spend eight minutes in the centre square 'directing traffic' between the 17th and 27th minute mark of the final quarter.
"When I saw Nick Maxwell just run on the ground for GWS [last week] and spend minutes at a time out on the ground, standing in the centre square, yelling and screaming, and pointing and directing at players, it's just something that we don't need," Walls told ESPN.
"We have more players on the field than any other code and more umpires than ever before, so the fewer people we have out there the better."
Walls, who also coached Richmond and the Brisbane Bears in a glittering career, believes the role of the club runner has almost been made redundant, given the high level of player rotations and abundance of coaching staff.
"You've got a team of six or seven coaches and players are more heavily instructed than ever before, and players are on and off the ground more than ever before with this constant stream of rotations," he told ESPN.
"I think the fewer people that are actually on the ground, the better."
Maxwell has already come under fire this season after Tigers coach Damien Hardwick accused the former Collingwood premiership captain of strategically positioning himself on the field clog up space.
The AFL conducted an investigation but no penalties were handed out.
The AFL could not be contacted for comment on Maxwell's latest indiscretion.