FORWARD Junior Rioli has been banned for two matches after having his striking charge downgraded at the AFL tribunal.

Rioli was sent directly to the tribunal after an incident involving Essendon’s Jordan Ridley in the club’s win over the Bombers on Sunday.

Ridley was subbed out of the game with concussion after contact involving Rioli inside forward 50 in the second quarter of the game.

After seeing the charge downgraded, Port Adelaide’s tribunal officer Shane Grimm said Rioli was eager to put the matter behind him.

He confirmed the club would consider overnight whether a further challenge was warranted.

“We’re happy with the tribunal proceedings. We feel Junior had a fair hearing,” Grimm said to media waiting at the club following the hearing.

“Junior has had a big couple of days so he’s obviously very happy that he’s got this over and done with.

“We’ll look into this further overnight and see where we go from here but as I said he’s very happy this is over and done with and looking forward to moving on.”

The Match Review Officer had originally charged Rioli with striking and graded the incident as careless conduct with high contact that had a severe impact.

Because of the base penalty being a minimum three-game suspension, Rioli was unable to enter any form of plea and had to front the tribunal on Wednesday evening.

Representing Rioli, Paul Ehrlich KC argued in the first instance that the striking charge was not made out because there was no striking action, and instead there was contact in the course of Rioli applying a block for teammate Jeremy Finlayson to have an unimpeded lead at the approaching ball.

“The vision demonstrates Mr Rioli has his back to Mr Ridley and his right arm up in a shepherding or blocking motion,” Mr Ehrlich explained to the jury of Richard Loveridge, Paul Williams and Chair Jeff Gleeson.

“The arm is up long before he passes before Mr Ridley. What we say is that is not consistent with a striking motion but a shepherding motion.

“We say there is prohibited conduct because there was an illegal shepherd, but it was not a strike.”

Mr Ehrlich also argued the impact of the contact should not have been deemed as severe and instead a medium or high grading should be applied.

“If you are against us on the issue of striking, we say the impact cannot be described as severe,” he said.

“Concussion can be caused by very light impact depending where impact takes place… You do not need severe impact for there to be a concussion.”

For the AFL, Lisa Hannon KC suggested the striking charge was made out, arguing the incident warranted a three-week ban.

She disagreed with Mr Ehrlich’s submission that Rioli had not swung his arm back, saying instead he had swung his arm around while jumping past Ridley.

“We have an impact that occurs by hand, arm or elbow,” Ms Hannon said.

“What started as an attempt to shepherd, block or even bump ultimately resulted in a strike.

“If you’re going to turn in a jump to block and your arm swings back… it still constitutes a strike.”

Ms Hannon said it was “a matter of good fortune” that Ridley’s injuries were not more serious.

Tribunal hair Jeff Gleeson delivered the verdict after a period of deliberation, finding Rioli had used his hand or lower arm to make contact and that it had constituted striking.

But the panel found the contact did not involve significant force and the “glancing” contact did not merit a grading of severe impact.

The ban means Rioli will miss games against North Melbourne and Melbourne.