The AFL remains committed to its long pre-season format, even though six players have already gone down with season-ending knee injuries with the start of the home-and-away season still over three weeks away.

And AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson also defended the staging of pre-season matches at country venues after two players - West Coast's Mitchell Brown and Collingwood's Brad Dick - suffered serious knee injuries during a match played in Albany in southern Western Australia last weekend.

That pair join Sydney star Nick Malceski and youngster Kristin Thornton, North Melbourne rookie Nathan Grima and Fremantle veteran Paul Hasleby on the long-term casualty list already this season.

There is a school of thought among many AFL fans and indeed the clubs that rather than expose players to injury in a month-long series of practice matches before the start of the home-and-away season, instead extend the home-and-away season to ensure a fairer draw for all teams.

But Anderson said on Tuesday the pre-season was an important part of the AFL calendar.

"There is a variety of views always put forward about the pre-season and how it may or may not work better but at the moment it provides us with a fantastic opportunity to take games all around the country," he said.

"Last week we took a game to Albany for the first time and the response from the local community was outstanding."

"The game was a sell-out, there were more than 8000 people there and it gives us a great opportunity to take AFL football to places where they don't normally get to see it and the response is outstanding because year on year the crowds keep improving."

Anderson denied the surface at Albany contributed in any way to the injuries suffered by Dick and Brown.

"We follow an intensive process to make sure the grounds are at AFL standard," he said.

"And speaking to the Eagles after the game they felt the surface at Albany was one of the best they had played on."

"We had independent turf experts assess the ground and assist in the preparation at every one of these venues and we take very seriously our obligation to provide excellent playing surfaces."

Anderson said the AFL was 'always concerned when players are injured and we take it very seriously' but said serious knee injuries were generally on the decline.

"We are the only sport that for 15 or 16 years has had an on-going injury survey which is published annually and fortunately these sorts of injuries have been on the decline in the long-term," he said.

"We continually monitor and are concerned when any of our players are injured and we will be keeping a close watch on that."

"But whenever you play games, players can get injured because that is the nature of our sport."

"But what have done with a lot of success over recent years is try to avoid them as best we can such as the introduction of the ruck rule (limiting the run-up at centre bounces) which has virtually eliminated posterior cruciate ligament injuries at centre bounce contests."

"However being a contact sport we are always going to have the possibility of injuries."