The AFL will appeal the two-week suspension handed to Richmond’s Bachar Houli for knocking out Carlton’s Jed Lamb, believing the sanction to be “manifestly inadequate”.

In a ruling on Tuesday night, the AFL Tribunal deemed Houli’s strike on Lamb as intentional and of high impact to the head, but chose to ban him for just two matches.

The appeal will be held on Thursday at 1730 AEST.

AFL football operations manager Simon Lethlean informed Richmond shortly before midday on Wednesday that the AFL was taking the case to the Appeals Board.

Lethlean, who fronted the media to read a prepared statement but did not take questions, said the appeal had been lodged on the grounds that “the sanction imposed was manifestly inadequate”.

The AFL had initially argued for a four-week sanction.

“I want to stress that the AFL takes impact to the head extremely seriously,” Lethlean said.

“This appeal is based on the AFL’s view in relation to the sanction imposed and not a judgement on the character evidence or the character of Bachar Houli in general.”

The tribunal jury – comprising David Neitz, Hamish McIntosh and Wayne Henwood – dismissed Houli’s argument the incident was careless instead of intentional conduct.

But they sparked outcry when they handed down the two-game sanction, citing Houli’s exemplary character.

References from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and media commentator and academic Waleed Aly were a key part of the tribunal’s penalty deliberations.

Match review panel member Nathan Burke criticised the weight the tribunal placed on the character references.

“I would probably much prefer if you just looked purely at the incident and graded it on that,” Burke said on Fox Sports News.

“If you start bringing in ‘this bloke’s a good bloke, this bloke’s not a good bloke’, who are we to actually judge who is a good bloke and who isn’t in the first place?

“If somebody goes in next week and does exactly the same thing but doesn’t know Waleed Aly, doesn’t know the prime minister, does that mean they get three or four weeks?”

Former tribunal member Daniel Harford told RSN radio rubbing Houli out for six weeks could be considered a fair punishment.

The case was referred directly to the tribunal under the MRP guidelines but the sanction was the same as if it had been assessed as careless conduct with high impact to the head – three games down to two with an early plea.