Richmond will be without Tom Lynch for the next five games – including this month’s cellar-dweller clash with West Coast – as the AFL tribunal dished out its heftiest penalty of the season.

Lynch was referred directly to the tribunal for punching Adelaide’s Jordan Butts, with the hit graded as intentional with severe impact and high contact.

Tigers lawyer Sam Tovey said Lynch’s fist wasn’t clenched and argued for the impact to be downgraded to high, rather than severe, to pave the way for a three-match ban.

But AFL counsel Nick Pane described the contact as being made with a “blatant, forceful swinging arm” and pushed for a five-match penalty, with that ban ultimately decided upon after more than an hour of deliberation.

Lynch will miss Richmond’s clashes with Geelong, Essendon, West Coast and Collingwood and Gold Coast before a potential return for the final three games of the year.

The veteran said he was trying to make contact with Butts’ upper back with his strike, but failed to execute it and apologised to his opponent as soon as the match had finished.

“I got it wrong and it was the wrong thing to do,” he said.

Lynch’s penalty surpasses the four-match ban handed down to Hawthorn’s Conor Nash for striking Geelong’s Gryan Miers as the year’s biggest.

The spearhead had maintained that he couldn’t have used a closed fist to execute the strike as he can’t fully bend the middle finger on his right hand since having the middle knuckle fused in an operation in 2020.

“I can’t bend my middle finger so I can’t fully form a clenched fist,” he said.

“It was more a swipe to get him off me.”

However, Pane argued it was more good luck than good management that flusher contact wasn’t made and that injury wasn’t sustained”, with Butts ultimately cleared to finish the match.

Pane said the strike was “the type of action from a bygone era”.

“There is no place for it in our game,” he said.