St Kilda tagger Steven Baker is set to miss the rest of the AFL home and away season after a tribunal bid failed on Tuesday night, but the Saints have indicated their fight is not yet over.

Baker was banned for nine matches, the cumulative penalty for pleading guilty to three counts of striking, then failing in his fight to be cleared of a misconduct charge at the tribunal.

But Saints chief executive Michael Nettlefold said the club was "extremely disappointed" at the nine-game penalty and the club's board would be meeting to consider their next step, which might include an appeal.

"On any measure, for what has been confirmed as four low impact incidents by the tribunal, it is a most significant and extreme impost on Steven and the club," Nettlefold said.

"In terms of any further action the club may take, the St Kilda board will now consider its position and will not be making any further comment at this stage."

Geelong coach Mark Thompson has condemned Baker's conduct towards Cat Steve Johnson and believes the AFL's crackdown will be heard across the league.

Baker struck Johnson last Friday night at the MCG, and also hit his opponent's injured hand.

Johnson was suspended for three games for twice striking Baker.

Thompson conceded the suspension the match review panel imposed on Baker, and that the tribunal upheld was heavy, but said it was justified and would send a message to all players that behind-the-play incidents would not be tolerated.

"I think the message that they're (the panel members) trying to send is that they don't want Stevie Baker's actions to be repeated by any player that plays in the AFL because they were quite severe and that would be a good thing," he said, before Baker's tribunal appearance.

"I don't want to attack Steven Baker, but ... I just don't think we need to see that sort of stuff in a game of footy.

"You don't expect to play a game of footy and go out and get harassed off the ball - you just don't need that in your life, do you?

"As a player or a spectator you don't want to see it."

Thompson said the Cats opted not to challenge the suspensions imposed on Johnson and Cameron Mooney by the panel because they did not think they could win.

Mooney will miss the Cats' next two games after pleading guilty to striking Saints defender Jason Blake.

Thompson admitted Johnson was wrong to retaliate when he threw back an elbow at Baker, which left the backman with a cut near the eye that required stitches.

"I spoke to (AFL football operations general manager) Adrian (Anderson) yesterday and I said that it was a bit hard that Stevie Baker was doing that and Steve Johnson had to accept it," Thompson said.

"But in the end Steven (Johnson) has broken the rules too and we just have to live by that. Unfortunately that's what happened."

Mooney was suspended for two games for striking Jason Blake.

Thompson said the umpires could have defused the stoush between Baker and Johnson by intervening early, but said the lessons from the judicial fall-out would seep through this week.

"A player would be quite foolish to do anything like that because you'd probably think the umpires will try to jump in and change that pretty early," he said.

"That's OK because that's what we do as coaches.

"We sit down every week and work out things that we didn't do too well and try and improve them. Umpires are no different."

The night started poorly for Baker, when the Saints had to back down on their original plan to contest one of the three striking charges - all laid over hits on Johnson.

The Saints had planned to argue that in the first of the incidents, Baker did not make high contact, as alleged in the charge.

But, after viewing video footage of the incident inside the tribunal room, they changed their minds.

Baker's advocate Tony Nolan SC said the footage was clearer on the AFL's screen than what the Saints had earlier had access to and did make it clear that high contact had been made.

The AFL allowed them to submit an early guilty plea - and earn the resultant 25 per cent deduction - on that charge, despite the late notice.

They then attempted to argue the misconduct charge - for unnecessarily making contact to Johnson's hand after it had been injured early in the game - should be thrown out.

Nolan argued it was unclear both from video footage and from a medical report submitted by the Cats - which said Johnson suffered a broken bone in his hand - whether the Geelong forward was injured before Baker made contact.

But tribunal counsel Andrew Tinney SC successfully countered that argument by saying Johnson had shown clear signs of discomfort.

Tinney said it would be a "strange coincidence" if Baker had taken the unusual step of physically targeting Johnson's hand without an injury having occurred, only for it to be subsequently injured.

After Baker was found guilty, the Saints then attempted to have the penalty downgraded, on the basis that a player being found guilty of four offences in one match constituted "exceptional and compelling circumstances".

Nolan argued Baker should have had the suspensions for each offence calculated individually - two matches for each striking offence and one for misconduct - totalling seven games.

But AFL guidelines state that the demerit points of each offence be added together, which reached 946.89, with one game suspended for each multiple of 100 points, resulting in the nine-game ban.

In an interesting twist, tribunal chairman David Jones said it was a case involving Baker in 2007 - in which he also committed multiple offences in a single game - that resulted in the AFL amending the rules so the points are added together.

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