Carlton have taken the unusual step of fining ill-disciplined Jarrad Waite for his latest AFL suspension.

Waite’s one-game ban for headbutting proved crucial on Monday night as the Blues lost to St Kilda by only nine points.

Captain Marc Murphy called the headbutting incident stupid and said the club decided a fine was an appropriate way to ram the message home.

“It was just a stupid thing to do,” Murphy told the AFL website.

“Waitey’s got to be better than that and he knows that.

“Obviously, he’s had a few suspensions over the years for doing silly little things that there’s just no need to do.

“As a whole, we thought it (the fine) wasn’t a bad way of getting the message across to Waitey.”

Murphy would not say how much Waite was fined.

Waite missed the first five matches of the season through injury.

He returned for the round-six win over Melbourne and headbutted defender Tom McDonald.

“We missed Waitey at the start of the season through injury and we really missed him on Monday night when we probably lacked a good leading forward to come up at the ball, which is a role Waitey plays really well for us,” Murphy said.

“You can’t afford to have such an important player missing games for doing stupid things.

“We need him out there as much as we can.”

Murphy also confirmed that coach Mick Malthouse had “got into” Waite over the suspension.

On Tuesday, Blues midfielder Kade Simpson revealed Waite had apologised to the team for his latest on-field discipline lapse.