Richmond's Bachar Houli leaves the AFL tribunal after receiving a two-week suspension for striking Jed Lamb. Credit:Getty Images Houli was found guilty of deliberately hitting Jed Lamb when he knocked him out with a strike to the head. This is about as serious a charge as the tribunal gets. Amazingly, the punishment it received was about as low as it could get. Houli's two-match ban was at the very best cut in half because of his outstanding character and at worst he might have been banned for more than that. On the identical charge Barry Hall got seven matches. Houli, though, is no Hall and was rightly not considered as such. The AFL's Simon Lethlean still had no choice but to appeal. Two weeks for knocking out a player with a deliberate strike to the head simply cannot be deemed to be two weeks.

Malcolm Turnbull will argue aggressively for free trade in a politically volatile world which is retreating towards protectionism, during an eight-day trip to Europe. Credit:AP Offences of Houli's category are off the AFL's punishment chart and are left to the discretion of the tribunal. The counsel assisting the tribunal Andrew Woods reasoned that four matches must be the starting point for this offence. Woods reasonably extrapolated from the punishment schedule that if an offence of intentional, to the head and medium impact was three weeks, then an offence worse than that must begin at four weeks and slide upwards depending on the circumstances. It was not envisaged it would slide down. Jed Lamb on the ground after being struck by Bachar Houli. Credit:Getty Images Houli's unimpeachable character must deservedly reduce, or in this case restrict, the sentence to the bare minimum, but it must not drop below the bare minimum.

The tribunal essentially banned Houli for less time for a high-impact blow to the head than they would have for another player striking with a medium-impact blow. That is absurd. As far as discounts go this was a Boxing Day sale. Will Schofield beat his striking charge at the AFL tribunal, but could not overcome a hip injury. Credit:Getty Images To be clear, there is no question that Houli is anything other than an outstanding character, an admirable man and a leader in troubled times. He has done tremendous good to bridge the widening gap of a divided world, but a discount to two matches is ridiculous and rightly has been appealed. This was the same penalty a player would get if they didn't take the MRP's offer of a plea and instead challenged a light brush to the jaw from a deliberately thrown elbow and lost. That's right: someone like Will Schofield going to the tribunal and losing. It seems Dr Waleed Aly was the only doctor listened to by the AFL tribunal. Credit:Simon Schluter

You could not disentangle the two cases heard on Tuesday: Houli, then Schofield. Schofield admitted he meant to hit Clayton Oliver and clipped him in the jaw with his elbow but argued contact was so slight as to be negligible. The MRP said it was low impact, he said it was barely any at all. If he failed in his case he would have received two weeks, the same as Houli. How could the same tribunal possibly find against Schofield and ban him for the same length of time as Houli when, by no one's reckoning, was Oliver's blow a heavy one? Oliver did get hit, contact was definitely made and he did go to ground. The doctor's report did says he was assessed at half-time and after the game and he had a sore jaw. But he did not miss a minute of game time. No one actually said Oliver went down too easily or took a dive, but the finding that contact was not sufficient for a charge implies as much.