COACH Paul Roos says a dinner involving the AFL chief executive Gill McLachlan and the AFL coaches is a great idea and he hopes it will happen again, even though his Fox Footy commitments prevented his appearance.

Roos and Essendon coach Mark Thompson remained committed to their weekly AFL 360 commitments on Monday night. But Roos said “it was a terrific idea” to get the coaches together with the CEO.

“Hopefully it happens more and more,” he said.

“The email said ‘we understand you’ve got things on and those who can make it – make it’. There was 11 or 12 days notice.

“Normally in those circumstances, you enjoy the evening, but I think Gill understood it was pretty short notice for coaches from interstate and other coaches.

“It would’ve been great to be there, but it was pretty informal, as mentioned in the email.”

Meanwhile, Roos said he was not a fan of the television broadcasters putting their cameras regularly on the senior coach in the coaches’ box on match-day.

Roos’ comments came after the scrutiny surrounding Carlton coach Mick Malthouse, who showed his displeasure at Channel 7 personnel, including Cameron Ling, for regular shots of him in the coaches’ box on the broadcast during last Saturday night’s loss against the Sydney Swans.

“I think it’s unnecessary and I don’t think it adds anything to the game of footy, when you see the coaches swearing and carrying on. Maybe I’m wrong – maybe the fans enjoy it, but I don’t see that adds anything at all to the coverage.”

“As a coach, we understand that a camera is there.

“If I was a fan, I’d expect the coaches to be emotional, because it’s an emotional game and I’m not sure the fans go down there and sit there quietly for 120 minutes. I don’t know what the fascination is.”