Jonathan Brown believes Lance Franklin must give up the bump despite admitting the Hawthorn star was terribly unlucky to be suspended this week.

Brown was sympathetic to Franklin's plight on Wednesday after he was rubbed out of Saturday night's big clash with Collingwood on a rough conduct charge.

The Brisbane Lions skipper agreed with Hawthorn officials his fellow power forward was harshly treated for his half-hearted bump on veteran Bulldog Jason Akermanis, rating it a mere "love-tap".

But with Franklin suspended for two games last year for high contact on Ben Cousins, Brown said the onus was on the 196cm-tall Hawks spearhead to adhere to the AFL's stand against contact with the head.

"There's no doubt you have to adjust your technique," he said.

"They're not going to change the rules with head-high contact.

"The AFL have done a tremendous job in protecting the players' heads, that's for sure, so players have got to work within those boundaries.

"The bump is fraught with danger, to line a player up.

"Too much can go wrong. The player can fumble, he can duck his head. He can do a number of things the split second after you have made the decision to bump.

"You are much better off going for the tackle or not doing anything at all otherwise the chance of laying the perfect bump is becoming harder and harder these days."

Former firebrand Brown himself is an example in how players' can adjust their game to escape judicial punishment, and extremely rarely delivers hip and shoulders or bumps himself.

Initially surprised to be reported, Franklin felt high contact with Akermanis was unavoidable after the 177cm-tall Bulldog passed the ball and argued their height difference contributed to the head contact.

Brown admitted the 2008 Coleman Medallist was "pretty unlucky".

"I didn't think there was a hell of a lot in it," he said.

"Obviously the height is an issue for him and he hit Ben Cousins last year.

"When you are making the majority of your contact to the head you know you are going to be in a little bit of strife but I think it needs to be significant enough, that was a bit of a love tap I believe."

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