Hyett came in for widespread criticism following her team’s loss to Essendon last Friday night, when the Bulldogs threw spare players into defence and managed just three behinds for the game.

It was the third time this season they were held goalless.

Starcevich, who has coached Brisbane since the AFLW’s inception in 2016, said he had some sympathy for Hyett just eight games into her tenure with a young, “rebuilding” team.

“They’re trying to stay competitive, mitigate damage on the scoreboard and show their supporters they’re competing,” he said.

Starcevich said although the negative commentary had some validity, he thought it was too harsh and too sweeping on a still-emerging competition.

“If you look hard enough at any sporting comp around the world, even our men’s comp, there’ll be the odd game every weekend where you think, ‘Why did I waste my time watching that?’

“That happens and our comp is no different.

“I wish people would focus more on the quality of games that are going on in AFLW, of which there are plenty every weekend, but it just seems to suit the narrative that we home in on the ones that aren’t that good, which I think is a little rough and does our comp no favours.”

Starcevich said coaches, law-makers and officials all needed to get together to discuss the best path forward.

He said making the game 16-a-side and implementing the “last touch” rule were positive steps to opening the game up and promoting more scoring, but perhaps more “tweaking” could help again.

“All of us have got a role to play in keeping it attractive and to keep bringing in audiences to our game,” Starcevich said.

“There’s some things we can do by coming together and adjusting some rules and helping each other out in terms of fixturing and putting marquee games on at the right time.

“We played Melbourne at Casey in round two, which was 11 o’clock in the morning, and the two clubs playing were the last two premiers.

“I think we could do ourselves a bigger favour by moving that game to a marquee TV spot.”