Fremantle's Nat Fyfe has had his two-match suspension upheld and needlessly accrued 69 carry-over points in the process after a bungled tribunal challenge. Fyfe will not be available for the Dockers until the first week of the finals as a result of the striking charge against him being sustained on Tuesday night.

Fremantle had the option of accepting the penalty and having 7.19 points on Fyfe's record, rather than 76.25 without the guilty-plea discount. The pivotal midfielder finished the hearing with the latter because of a failed argument to have his charge downgraded.

The match review panel graded Fyfe's strike to Hawthorn's Jordan Lewis at the weekend as intentional, low impact and high contact. The player's counsel, Nick Tweedie, SC, attempted to have the ban downgraded to one match, on the basis he intended to solely strike his Hawks opponent to his body, and therefore any high contact was not intentional and should be considered reckless.

The problem with Fremantle's argument was the conduct grading - intentional, reckless, negligent - occurs in isolation, and relates solely to the act and not to other factors, such as where the impact occurred. That meant that, in the case of Fyfe, it was only relevant that he meant to strike Lewis, not that he meant to strike him to the body and inadvertently made high contact.

While Tweedie repeatedly argued Fyfe deserved a downgrade tribunal chairman Ross Howie blocked that argument being considered by the jury, because it contravened tribunal law. This ensured Fyfe was saddled with 69 more points than he could have accrued had Fremantle accepted the charge - not just before the hearing but even soon after it began, after it was informed its argument was invalid.

The suspension should quell the persistent criticism levelled at the AFL for the decision of its independent match review panel to give Fyfe a two-match rough conduct ban in round two, after an unintended head clash that injured Gold Coast's Michael Rischitelli that occurred as part of a bump laid by Fyfe. That criticism intensified throughout the season as Fyfe's hot form, combined with the season-ending injury to the Suns' Gary Ablett, fed expectation the Docker could finish with the most Brownlow Medal votes this years but be ineligible to win it because of that ban.