JAMES KELLY, JAMES PODSIADLY CLEARED TO PLAY AFL GRAND FINAL
Ben Jensen 26 September 2011

AFL GRAND FINAL GEELONG CATS COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES GEELONG'S James Podsiadly and James Kelly have escaped the hangman's noose and been cleared by the AFL Match Review Panel to play in Saturday's Grand Final against Collingwood. Kelly's incident with Daniel Kerr in which Kelly slid into Kerr was ruled accidental while Podsiadly's hip and shoulder on Adam Selwood was ruled as 'body to body' with no foreful high contact made. Steve Johnson and club medicos continue to do all they can to make sure he is likewise available, the injury responding as well as it could, so the Cats may yet field a full-strength side. Meanwhile the Brownlow Medal takes the attention away from the Grand Final for a few hours tonight, with the tacky 'Blue Carpet' taking centrestage before what many consider a yawn-fest got underway.

Geelong watchers would have noted The Age's Jesse Hogan's article, Pod's law: how Cat could miss, predicting that Pods would be cited by the MRP and miss the Grand Final. It certainly lit up the Twittersphere. To her credit though she got this right. "Geelong's best chance of having Podsiadly available for the grand final is that the panel deem the contact to Selwood's head was too slight to warrant a charge. While Selwood was stunned and spent some time on the bench soon after the third-quarter collision he was fit enough to finish the match." So no harm done then!

AFL STATEMENT

J Kelly cleared contact D Kerr. Panel said Kelly was contesting ball by attempting to smother Kerr handpass and contact was accidental

J Podsiadly cleared contact A Selwood. Majority of contact was body to body and there was no forceful high contact made.