North Melbourne coach Brad Scott believes AFL players will quickly take heed of what's outlawed off the ball following the huge suspension imposed on St Kilda's Steven Baker.

Baker was this week suspended for nine games for four separate incidents involving Geelong's Steve Johnson last Friday night, and his ban signalled that tactics such as jabbing opponents and trying to inflame injuries will not be tolerated.

Despite threats made by Baker's manager Paul Connors that the penalty imposed on the Saints backman would cause revolt among playing ranks towards the AFL, Scott said the message was clear.

"To be honest, it's a great message," Scott said on Thursday.

"You can go out there and you can play the game as hard as you possibly can, but it's still got to be fairly and within the spirit of the game.

"Steven Baker's been a terrific player - I've got a lot of respect for him - but the AFL and the match review panel made their presence very well known and players are very clear on what they can and can't do.

"Players who have played defensive roles for us in the past, Levi Greenwood and Marcus White at VFL level and Brady Rawlings in the past, they're very, very clear as to what they can and can't do, so the message has certainly got through."

Scott's brother Chris and Brisbane Lions teammate Mal Michael caused controversy in 2005 when they both repeatedly bumped St Kilda star Nick Riewoldt's injured shoulder in a match while the Saint was defenceless to protect himself.

The AFL introduced a misconduct law in the wake of that incident preventing players trying to exploit opponents' injuries, and Baker became the first player suspended under the rule, for hitting Johnson's hand, which was broken earlier in the game.

Brad Scott welcomed a crackdown on Baker's tactics.

"I don't think you'll see too much of what happened in that game go on in the future because players are very clear as to what the consequences are," he said.

"I think the message is very clear.

"Players adapt very quickly.

"I like to see players play really hard, but I don't think there's room for that in the game any more, the constant sniping and jumper punching and that sort of stuff.

"That's probably a sign of a bygone era."

Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade also had "no problems" with Baker's penalty, given a large chunk of it came through extra loading for his poor record.

But Eade said the panel now had to remain consistent in its rulings, which has been another criticism of the judicial system this year.

"As a lot of other people said, there's just got to be the consistency," Eade said.

"I've got no problem with the severity or the leniency of any verdict as long as they're consistent across the board.

"Maybe that's the thing that's lapsed the last four weeks.

"If they're consistent with that, that's fine, we know what rules we play under then it's up to the adjudicator, whether it's the umpire or the match review panel, in applying the rules."

Meanwhile, AFL Players Association chief executive Matt Finnis said players would like the tribunal system to allow decisions made in previous cases to be used as evidence, to provide greater consistency.

"We've been trying to achieve the use of precedent evidence," Finnis told SEN radio on Thursday.

"We thought that would be useful if the players had access to be able to bring evidence of cases that have been decided, or perhaps even not decided, previously to improve the consistency of decisions along the way.

"That's something which thus far the AFL haven't decided to adopt."

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