If anyone was looking for regret from Gillon McLachlan, he was giving it a bye.

And he was giving expressiveness a "don't argue" as well. On his way into the AFL Rising Star Awards, if anything, he seemed to be retreating from comments he'd made just a couple of hours earlier on Melbourne radio.

On the wireless, he'd said it was "an appropriate request" to ask his staff to pass on his cousin Callum MacLachlan's email to Peter Dutton's office.

But he refused to say the same when asked several times by this reporter about the use of his office and staff to help his cousin.

It's hard to say why he'd retreat from this description.

McLachlan also stepped back from his stated assertion on 3AW that he didn't think that he was given special treatment, saying simply: "I'm not going to comment on that. I'm clearly here to talk to you about what I did."

Nonetheless, he pointed out "it's been said there's hundreds of representations put to [Mr Dutton's] office, and it's up to the office to make those decisions. All I did was facilitate an email getting to the office".

But still, seemingly, he has no regrets. McLachlan insists his actions were to "help a friend" and if asked again "I will help people when I can". And he says he didn't know of his cousin's family's political donations to state and federal branches of the Liberal Party.

McLachlan's admission he's met with the AFL Board at a Commission meeting this week and been "fully transparent" about his actions underline that scrutiny has indeed followed the chief executive down the AFL's corridors.

He needed to front up behind closed doors and, now in public, about why he used his office and his staff, on a Sunday, to help his cousin.

McLachlan sought for three days to keep his head down, hoping the political storm that had sucked him and his staff into its vortex would pass.

And when it comes to being accountable to public opinion, he again played a dead bat, refusing to talk about the criticism of his actions on social media and on talkback radio.

Straight bats and hip-and-shoulders are great on various fields of play, but are blunt instruments when it comes to dealing with matters involving politics and powerful people. With calls for Senate enquiries in the offing, this issue could have a far longer tail than the 2018 flag celebrations.

As has been stated time and again, it's not the legality of the actions of anyone involved in this episode that are in question — all parties were within their rights. It's the seemliness of them. And questions about this whole episode have fallen in greater part to the elected official in this equation, rather than the McLachlan/MacLachlan cousins.

But it may well remain unwanted, uncomfortable baggage for the AFL chief, already battling the perception that his administration is making decisions out of touch with the outer.