The AFL is far from embarrassed that Chris Tarrant's striking ban plummeted from five weeks to one in two hours, on Tuesday night.

One of the most contentious elements of the new system is that the match review panel and the tribunal can differ so much in what penalty should apply to an incident.

But AFL operations manager Adrian Anderson insisted it showed the system was working properly.

Tarrant's case again highlighted the issue, with the Collingwood full-forward receiving a one-match ban from the tribunal after being found guilty of striking.

The tribunal significantly downgraded his offence after the match review panel originally found it was worth a five-match ban, or three games if he took an early plea.

Collingwood had hoped the charge would be dismissed but chose not to appeal, meaning Tarrant will miss Sunday's clash with the Kangaroos.

"(I'm) very satisfied with the functioning of the match review panel and the tribunal," Anderson said.

"In particular, it's important that sometimes the tribunal will come to a different conclusion from the match review panel.

"For the system to work well, we need to have occasionally the tribunal coming to a different conclusion.

"If it were a rubber stamp, it would be a failure."

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