Former Port Adelaide player Kane Cornes said the AFL should consider amending its video review system for “sickening” hits like these, especially considering how seriously concussions are now handled within the game.

“Tom Stewart should have been sent off for that hit. There should be a sin bin in the AFL for serious incidents like that because that was the difference in the game,” Cornes said on the Sunday Footy Show.

“He’s run past the ball, he’s got him high, he sent him to next week. He wasn’t contesting the ball. He didn’t have a play on the ball. He’s knocked the guy out, and he’s missed, and now it’s going to be four weeks, but that’s no consolation for Richmond.

“He [Stewart] shouldn’t be rewarded by being able to stay on the field and get best on ground while Richmond lose their best player and lose the game as a result.”

Roy Masters, renowned former rugby league football coach and sports journalist, echoed Cornes’ sentiment, arguing that Stewart would have been immediately sidelined if he were playing a different sport.

“In the great and glorious game [rugby league], he wouldn’t have been there. He would have been sent off because it was high, it was late, it was off the ball, and it is going to result in one of his opponents [being] out of the game for potentially a month,” Masters said on Offsiders on Sunday morning.

The league has been contacted for comment.

Former Saints captain Nick Riewoldt said he expected the All-Australian player to receive more than four matches on the sidelines, the “nasty incident” was hard to defend.

“It’s a bad one, there’s not really any redeemable quality or anything,” Riewoldt said on Fox Footy’s Best on Ground on Saturday night.

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“Yes, he looked extremely remorseful – he was visibly shaken at quarter time – but runs past the football, it’s a long way gone.”

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