Sometime between letting Chris Judd off for whacking Matthew Pavlich and handing Steven Baker a seres of suspensions that may have him back for the finals, the AFL Match Review Panel must have been to the dentist to get a new set of teeth.

Extra sharp.

To sum it up, if Baker pleads guilty to all four charges involving Geelong's Steve Johnson, he will be back for the first week of the finals. If he challenges and fails, he won't play again this year.

You can't escape the feeling that the MRP has reacted to criticism last week that it went too soft on Judd, by coming out as hard as it could with Baker, and calling him to account for every infraction it could. But amid the all the hysteria over "nine weeks for Baker", people are already overlooking that he is facing four charges - three strikes and one for unlawful conduct, the punching of Johnson's hand.

What the Saints are no doubt doing now is reviewing each charge - which is worth contesting and which is not.

But nine weeks is massive. Baker is not one of St Kilda's best players, but is one of its most annoying and therefore, a key weapon for Ross Lyon. At the same time, Lyon is entitled to ask Baker just what he was thinking while niggling Johnson when he still had carryover points from the 2007 clash with Jeff Farmer hanging over his head.

Once the Saints decide their course of action, they are entitled to turn their ire towards the AFL umpiring department. By our reckoning, three field, four boundary, two goal and one emergency umpires equals 10 sets of eyes officiating at every AFL match and had one, just one, of these umpires stopped the nonsense between Baker and Johnson at the start of the match, then Baker and Johnson and Cameron Mooney would not be in the trouble they are now.

Dwayne Russell on 3AW is saying that Johnson's whack on Baker was probably more deserving of four weeks than two on the basis it was twice as bad as any of Baker's strikes. On the other hand, if Judd's strike on Pavlich the week before was considered to have been of minimal impact, then Johnson could consider himself stiff to have been cited at all.

You would imagine that with the benefit of hindsight, both Lyon and Mark Thompson would have happily conceded a free kick and perhaps even an early goal, if it would pulled their players into line and not resulted in the carnage at the MRP on Monday afternoon.

Later in the year, Lyon will need to determine whether to take Baker into a final having not played any footy for a couple of months.

But facing a bigger headache in the short term is Thompson, who faces massive selection issues over the next few weeks. In all likelihood, he will be without four first-choice forwards - Mooney, Johnson, Paul Chapman and Brad Ottens for Sunday's Skilled Stadium clash with North Melbourne. Key defender Harry Taylor might be in doubt as well. Geelong's 20-match winning streak at the Cattery will be under some threat.

Ottens is supposed to come into consideration the following week but a bit like Lyon with Baker, he will be severely underdone. Thompson may have little option but to bring him straight into the side for a game against Hawthorn, who the Cats have beaten in their last three matches, but by no more than nine points each time.

Geelong was always likely to face a tricky July as it started planning ahead for another finals campaign. But not a month like this.