Getting suspended is likely to leave any player hot under the collar if they weren't already.
But for those that have been rubbed out following cases built on hearsay and rumormongering, you could forgive them for being absolutely ropable, couldn't you?
Take Craig O'Brien's word for it.
During a reserves game in late May of 1992, the former Saint delivered a pre-warned whack that wasn't captured on camera but was still left the Tribunal with a three-week suspension.
"I was f***ing irate," O'Brien told theย Unpluggered podcast.
After three campaigns and 21 games as a Bomber, O'Brien traded Windy Hill for Moorabbin ahead of the 1992 season in an effort to play more senior football.
Yet, by the mid-way point of his debut year in red, white and black, the Mornington Peninsula product had failed to crack it for a gig with Ken Sheldon's resurgent Saints.
Down in the dumps as he made his way down the highway to kick the dew off Kardinia Park's unconventional confines, O'Brien's day was made worse by some close checking from his opposite number.
"I was playing down at Geelong and I was playing on Michael Mansfield," O'Brien said, setting the scene.
"I was frustrated because I wasn't playing senior footy (and) he kept pinching me. I hate people pinching me, I've got something against it. I said, 'Listen, if you pinch me again, I'm going to whack you.'
"He kept pinching me, so I whacked him. I got him well, but I didn't get reported or anything. He went off the ground with claret and came back on saying, 'I'm going to get you', so I went, 'Yeah, righto. Whatever.'
Though Mansfield wouldn't lay a glove on O'Brien for the rest of the afternoon, the then-22-year-old was in for a shock when caught off guard by field umpire Graeme Fallet in the room's post-game.
"After the game, the umpire came up and told me he was going to report me. I said, 'What for?' and he said, 'For striking', so I said 'Why are you reporting me after the game?' Well, the Geelong runner went up and told the umpire what had happened."
If O'Brien felt like he was behind the eight-ball on the Saturday, matters were only made worse by Tuesday when the builder by trade failed to meet the judiciary's dress code.
"I reckon I got seven weeks for rocking up in overalls," he said with a chuckle.
"I was stuck on the other side of Melbourne, I couldn't get home to get changed. I still had my pencils in my bib and brace overalls.
"I've rocked in and they've looked at me like, 'Are you serious?'
"(Mansfield) got up and went, 'Yep, we went toe-to-toe and he blatantly punched me in the face'. The umpire didn't see it (the punch) and then he got up and blatantly lied. If he had seen it on the spot, he would have reported me."
Blood boiling as he left the MCG's Great Southern Stand that night, O'Brien jumped behind the wheel of his car, readying himself for the infuriating task of navigating Punt Road's gridlock.
But not before an opportunity to even the score presented itself to the small forward.
"I'm out in the car park leaving and he's (Fallet) pulled up next to me," O'Brien added.
"Then he pulled up next to me at the lights at Punt Road and I've looked at him and thought, 'I've had this bloke.'
"I had an XA GT (Ford) ute that had half the motor hanging out of the bonnet. I've gone left and he's gone left with me, then he's gone right andย I thought, 'I'm going to chase him.'
"I've pulled up behind him at the lights and I reckon I'm about a centimetre from the back of his car.
"My aunty had a pub in Richmond so I was going to go back there and stay there the night. I've pulled in there and he ran through the red light s***ing himself and then I've found out I've been done for harassing an umpire.
"I go back to the Tribunal and they got the colour of the car wrong, they got all the streets wrong, but they gave me another seven weeks. So, in all, I got 10 weeks.
"The week after that, though, he made the paper for a player chesting him, so it kind of looked in my favour that the umpire was out to make a name for himself, otherwise I probably would have got 10 years."
It's unlikely that the match review system had a ready-made matrix for road rage, but after all was said and done, O'Brien was ruled out until Round 22 of the 1992 season and failed to make his debut for the Saints until Round 2 the following year - a high-scoring win over North Melbourne at Waverley.
And it was out at Mulgrave that Fallet and O'Brien would rumble in their own second round, a meeting that the former Bomber, Saint and Swan believed he had the upper hand in.
"The year after I'm playing good footy and I'm walking down to the changerooms at Waverley, I've turned around and there he was," O'Brien stated.
"He was working for St John's Ambulance at the time, he saw me and he went white. I reckon he needed his own treatment."
With past players ruled out for months at a time and some even life, a 10-week suspension is nowhere the longest ban in league history. However, O'Brien's double-dip at the Tribunal some 31 years ago is quite comfortably the only case of its kind in the competition's history.
