West Coast coach John Worsfold has leapt to the defence of wayward star Daniel Kerr, saying the midfielder often cops the type of hit for which he was handed a one-match ban at the AFL Tribunal.

Kerr failed on Tuesday night in his attempt to be cleared of striking Carlton's Marc Murphy before the opening bounce of last Friday night's clash at Etihad Stadium.

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

Western Bulldogs defender Brian Lake and Carlton youngster Mitch Robinson were more successful.

Lake was cleared of a tripping Sydney's Jarred Moore, while Robinson had a charge of rough conduct against West Coast's Adam Selwood downgraded, meaning he received a reprimand instead of a suspension.

But Kerr's terrible judiciary record continued, banned for one game for hitting Murphy in the stomach with a swinging right arm, a blow which left the Blues' midfielder writhing in pain on the ground.

Kerr could have escaped with a reprimand for an early guilty plea if not for his record of 10 matches suspended over the past three years, which earned him a 50 per cent penalty loading.

He told the tribunal he had only been trying to bump Murphy and said similar acts had been committed against him many times on a football field.

He said he had seen Carlton's Bret Thornton do exactly the same thing to the Eagles' Matt Rosa moments earlier, with the tribunal also shown video of that incident, for which Thornton was not cited.

"I went to do the same thing to Murphy to fly the flag, to do the right thing for my team," Kerr said.

But his argument failed to convince the jury, who found he intentionally struck Murphy.

Along with the suspension, he will now have 97.88 demerit points hanging over his head.

Earlier in the day, Worsfold said that Kerr had cleaned up his act this year and if he was suspended for the incident, the taggers who regularly dished out similar treatment to him should also face bans.

"If he's guilty, then he knows that there's a lot of players who will be in strife for hitting him," Worsfold said.

He also hinted that Kerr copped a hit before he connected with Murphy, although Kerr did not mention that at the tribunal hearing.

"Did no one whack him? Not what you could see," Worsfold said on Tuesday.

"I don't know. But I've heard of anecdotes that he had been."

The tribunal jury later took only about a minute of deliberating before clearing Lake.

They accepted the claim by the Bulldogs' key backman that he had intended purely to lay a bump on Moore and the only contact had been between his thigh and the Swan's hip, which had caused Moore to overbalance.

Earlier, Robinson successfully argued he had not intended to make contact with Selwood, but bumped into him as he was rushing to the interchange bench.

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 saying he had.

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

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.

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