GEELONG great Jimmy Bartel admits the Match Review Panel was "pretty disappointed" with the AFL Tribunal's decision to suspend Bachar Houli for two matches last week.

Bartel, a member of the MRP that sent the Richmond defender straight to the Tribunal for his strike to Carlton's Jed Lamb, looked on as the Tribunal handed down the sentence, which was later appealed by the AFL.

The appeal was successful and Houli's ban was doubled to four weeks, while the Tribunal had also earlier cleared West Coast defender Will Schofield of his one-game suspension handed down from the MRP for striking Clayton Oliver.

"We were pretty disappointed. I'm not sure if we lost confidence, because there's not much more we could have done really," Bartel told RSN927 on Monday.

"As we keep saying, it's just a box ticking exercise. We did it and it was left in their hands. Maybe the fact they had given Houli two, and the Schofield case was straight after, they were left with no room to move."

The Houli garnered widespread debate after his representatives used a character witness from TV personality Waleed Aly and comments by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in a bid to have the 29-year-old's ban reduced.

Bartel said the ability to call on character witness accounts should not be permitted if a player has chosen to challenge any of the charge.

"We clearly weren't on the same page with the Houli one, that's why we sent it to the Tribunal. But we also thought that gave Bachar a chance to explain himself, which I think was the right thing to do," he said.

"But once you plead not guilty to any part of it, I think you lose all right to bring in character references and everything like that. Part of the MRP and the Tribunal is, if you plead guilty, then you get your discount. But if you plead not guilty and still get found guilty of what boxes were ticked, then you're done. That's what surprised me the most."

It is Bartel's first season as a member of the MRP after he retired from the Cats last year. The Schofield case also divided opinion, including the suggestion Oliver exaggerated contact from the West Coast defender after the scuffle.

Bartel believes Oliver should have been called to give evidence at the Tribunal's hearing.

"I was a little bit surprised with the Clayton Oliver-Schofield one that Clayton Oliver wasn't called up and we could've just sorted it all out and said, 'Well, Melbourne put in a medical report that you had jaw soreness, talk us through it'. And Schofield said he collected him on the chin, so we would have found out either way," he said.

The MRP appears set to send another case direct to the Tribunal this week, following Tom Bugg's strike that left Sydney youngster Callum Mills concussed behind the play in Friday night's clash between the Demons and Swans.