West Coast midfield star Daniel Kerr has failed in his bid to overturn a one-match suspension for striking at the AFL Tribunal.

It means he will miss Sunday's clash with Geelong at Subiaco.

Kerr was reported for knocking down Carlton's Marc Murphy with an arm to the stomach before the opening bounce of last Friday night's match at Etihad Stadium.

He argued that he had bumped, rather than struck, Murphy and said he had been retaliating for what he claimed was identical contact made by the Blues' Bret Thornton on the Eagles' Matt Rosa moments earlier.

Thornton's contact with Rosa was assessed on Monday by the AFL match review panel as being of insufficient force to constitute a reportable offence.

But Kerr failed to convince the jury, who found him guilty of striking.

Kerr's penalty loading for previous offences meant he could not have avoided a one-match ban even if he had entered an early guilty plea.

As well as the suspension, he will now have 97.88 demerit points hanging over his head.

Earlier, Blues youngster Mitch Robinson escaped suspension after having a rough conduct charge downgraded.

Robinson had been charged with intentional rough conduct against West Coast's Adam Selwood.

But he successfully argued the contact was reckless, rather than intentional.

It meant that rather than the two-match ban he would have faced had the tribunal found against him, he was able to accept a reprimand and 93.75 carryover demerit points.

There was no video footage of the incident, meaning the case against Robinson rested on the evidence of emergency umpire Shane Stewart, who laid the report.

But Stewart changed his evidence over whether Robinson had deviated from his path to make contact with Selwood, initially saying he had not done so before later correcting himself.

The tribunal jury took only a few minutes of deliberation before ruling in favour of Robinson.

Western Bulldogs defender Brian Lake was still to appear before the tribunal to fight a one-match suspension.

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