AFL Grand Final Teams Announced

Submitted by johnson on Thu, 09/29/2011 - 8:25 AM EDT

by Johnson Leung reporting for AFANA from Melbourne

Collingwood and Geelong have announced their starting teams for Saturday's AFL Grand Final. In the only change to either team, Pies' midfielder Dayne Beams, who only had two possessions in last week's Preliminary Final win over Hawthorn, is out with groin soreness and has been replaced by Alex Fasolo. Pies ruckman Darren Jolly and key defender Ben Reid, who suffered upper-leg injuries in the match, have been retained in the team.

Geelong has named an unchanged team, including forward Steve Johnson, who hurt his knee last Saturday during the Preliminary Final win over West Coast. Johnson has been having treatment in a hyperbaric chamber this week to speed up his recovery from the injury, and had an encouraging appearance at the club's training session on Wednesday. He will have a fitness test before the match.

Geelong's emergencies feature the surprise inclusion of 19-year-old Cameron Guthrie, who made his AFL debut this season and has played just two games. Guthrie took the place of key forward Cameron Mooney, who will retire at the end of this season. Mooney, a triple Premiership player with North Melbourne (1999) and the Cats (2007 and 2009), revealed his omission to a big crowd at the AFL Grand Final Live Site at Melbourne's Federation Square. "Unless one of the big guys falls over at training tomorrow (Friday) or on Saturday, I'm probably not going to play," he said.

Here are the starting teams.

COLLINGWOOD

B: Alan Toovey, Ben Reid, Heritier O'Brien

HB: Nick Maxwell, Chris Tarrant, Heath Shaw

C: Jarryd Blair, Dane Swan, Dale Thomas

HF: Ben Johnson, Leigh Brown, Alan Didak

F: Steele Sidebottom, Travis Cloke, Luke Ball

Foll: Darren Jolly, Scott Pendlebury, Andrew Krakouer

I/C: Leon Davis, Chris Dawes, Sharrod Wellingham, Alex Fasolo

Emg: Tyson Goldsack, Cameron Wood, Ben Sinclair

In: Alex Fasolo

Out: Dayne Beams (Groin)