Matthew Lloyd has stuck by the AFL tribunal's call to uphold Sydney star Isaac Heeney's one-match ban for his hit on St Kilda defender Jimmy Webster during the Swans' two-point loss on Sunday.
But another former player says the "system is broken" given Heeney is now appealing the decision again in a last-ditch attempt to save his Brownlow Medal hopes.
If Heeney's suspension is overturned on Thursday, he will still be eligible for the Brownlow — which he is one of the favourites to take home.
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The incident occurred when Heeney was being tagged by Webster off-the-ball when the Swans star attempted to shrug him off, but swung his arm and hit Webster in the face.
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The act was graded as intentional conduct, low impact and high contact.
Now Lloyd has weighed in, agreeing that the suspension was always there, irrespective of the intent.
"Even though I think he was looking to get the defender off him, and he didn't want to hit him in the face, he still flung his hand back and hit Jimmy Webster in the face," Lloyd said on Nine's Footy Classified on Wednesday night.
When questioned by Geelong great Jimmy Bartel if Lloyd, who was a superstar Essendon key forward, would have accepted receiving that suspension when he played, he agreed he would.
"I'd understand that [getting a suspension]. There's a lot that does go on off the ball, but I'd understand in this day, if I fling the arm, back to try and lose him, and hit him in the face, I'd get a week," Bartel said.
Lloyd agrees.
"I have more sympathy for tacklers," he said.
"For blokes who lay tackles and accidentally hit a guy in the head, more so than a guy flinging his arm back."
But Eddie McGuire disagreed.
"He's got a week for a blood nose, let's be honest," he said.
That view was echoed by retired forward Nathan Brown who labelled the contact nothing more than "careless".
"I don't think Isaac Heeney intentionally hit Jimmy Webster," he told Nine's Today on Thursday.
"He was in the action of trying to get him away, and yeah, he clocked him in the head which for me, that's a careless act. It's not intentional."
However, Brown also stated that appealing decisions handed down by the tribunal was creating a "broken" disciplinary system.
"They've got a broken system when the MRO [Michael Christian] gives you a week, then you can go to the tribunal and now you can go to an appeals board," he said.
"There're too many steps. We need to simplify it.
"If you're rubbed out, you get an appeal and if that's rubbed out, you're done. I don't think there needs to be three [stages] and it goes on all week."
Carlton midfielder Patrick Cripps went through the same process before clinching his first Brownlow Medal in 2022.
During the season, Cripps was handed a two-match suspension for a bump on Brisbane's Callum Ah Chee. However, the Blues went on to successfully overturn the ban after a lengthy appeals board hearing.
Heeney will meet with the appeals board on Thursday night.
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