ADAM McPhee and Nathan Lovett-Murray will both miss Essendon's games against Sydney after the break after losing gambles to try and overturn one-match penalties at the AFL Tribunal.

Essendon has lost its past three games, three of its best four players — Dustin Fletcher, Scott Lucas and Mark McVeigh — head a long injury list, three players made their debut against Port Adelaide last week, while a fourth, Jay Neagle, played his second senior game. All in all, the Dons could ill afford to lose two more to suspension.

That was the logical conclusion to draw from the club's decision to contest the one-match bans offered by the match review panel to its two players, though the fact that both faced a one-week ban even with an early plea may have had something to do with it, too.

McPhee was charged with making forceful contact to the head of Port Adelaide forward Travis Boak in the final minutes of Sunday's game. He was reported on the day by field umpire Martin Ellis. Lovett-Murray was charged by the match review panel with striking Port's seven-goal forward Daniel Motlop just before half-time.

McPhee told the tribunal he had decided to bump Boak when he saw him take possession at a stoppage. He was then caught out by the fact that Boak dropped the ball and bent down to regain possession. "It happened in less than half a second and my decision to bump had been made," he said in answer to a question from his counsel, Dominic Cato.

The jury of three former players — Emmett Dunne, Stewart Loewe and Wayne Henwood — deliberated for about 10 minutes before finding the charge sustained.

McPhee will miss a game and also has 37.5 demerit points added to his record after foregoing his discount for an early plea.

In contrast, the panel took just a couple of minutes to reject Lovett-Murray's case that his action in striking Motlop was reckless, not intentional as classified by the match review panel.

Lovett-Murray said that there had been a lot of blocking by the Port forwards to create space and that he had been blocked by Motlop "a couple of times".

He intended to block Motlop to the advantage of his Essendon opponent Andrew Welsh in the incident for which he was reported.

Originally, he had intended to do that with a conventional shoulder block, he told the tribunal, "but as I realised he was running past me, I tried to block with my arm".

Under questioning by tribunal counsel Jeff Gleeson SC, Lovett-Murray agreed that he did not leave his arm still but rather swung it in Motlop's direction.

"I felt it was reckless, not intentional," he said.

In summing up, Gleeson said there was a clear intention to strike to the body. The panel agreed and Lovett-Murray is out for one game and has 62.50 carryover demerit points should he offend again in the next 12 months.

Had he succeeded in having the charge re-classified, he would have escaped with a reprimand.