COLLINGWOOD forward Sarah D'Arcy has accepted a two-match suspension for kicking in the first incident adjudicated by new match review officer Michael Christian.
D'Arcy was reported in Friday night's AFLW opener against Carlton at Ikon Park after she kicked out at Carlton's Sarah Hosking while she was on her back after taking a mark, making contact to her opponent's groin.
Read the match review officer's full statement
If she challenged the penalty, she risked an extra week rather than the $10,000 charge that has been implemented for the 2018 men's competition.
The two-week penalty was consistent with the 2018 table of offences, using the grading of intentional conduct with medium impact to the groin.
Christian said Carlton's medical report showed the impact of D'Arcy's kick to be negligible, but he upgraded the charge to medium impact because of the risk of serious injury.
"Sarah Hosking was able to get up … obviously she was distressed, but she was able to get up, take her kick and play on," Christian said.
"Ordinarily that would be low impact, but I decided to upgrade that to medium."
Christian said the same action with the same outcome in a men's match would have been met with a two-week ban.
The penalty effectively rules D'Arcy out for more than a quarter of the AFLW season, but Christian said he would not adjust his penalties to account for the shorter women's season.
"Just because it's a short season, I don't think that we need to excuse situations and actions like this," the newly installed match review officer said.
D'Arcy's penalty will sideline her until the midway point of the AFLW season, missing matches against Fremantle (Optus Stadium) and Greater Western Sydney (Olympic Park Oval) and returning for the round four clash against Melbourne in Alice Springs.
Western Bulldogs star Katie Brennan was charged with rough conduct and accepted a reprimand, while an incident involving Bulldog Bonnie Toogood and Fremantle’s Ashlee Atkins was cleared because both players were contesting the ball.
