Rival coaches Paul Roos and Mark Thompson will place their trust in the judgment of an AFL ground inspector after getting a close-up look at the re-laid Telstra Stadium surface for Saturday night's Sydney-Geelong clash.

Sydney's Roos and Geelong's Thompson seemed to have some initial reservations after inspecting the ground on which around 1,100 square metres of new turf was laid to replace diseased turf.

Whilst all the turf had been laid by mid-afternoon on Thursday, Roos decided to cancel the training session scheduled for the ground and relocated it to the Sydney Cricket Ground.

"There's a lot of work still to go on the ground and you want to make sure that they've got a chance to prepare it for Saturday night," Roos said.

Asked if he had any worries about the game going ahead at Telstra Stadium, Roos said: "I'm probably not qualified to talk about it, I'm a footy coach not a turf expert, so I have no idea."

While Geelong has never played at Telstra Stadium, Thompson was philosophical about the situation.

"We have this situation a fair bit in Melbourne at Telstra Dome," Thompson said.

"I've never seen a ground prepared like this in an AFL season, but come Saturday night it might be ready."

He said he was happy to play on grounds which had their turf repaired during the week.

"We are of the opinion that if the AFL consultants say it's ready to go we won't stand in the way, we'll play and we will back their judgment," Thompson said.

Roos said he would be happy with any assurance from the AFL that it was confident the ground would be ready.

While the game could be switched to the SCG if the ground didn't pass an AFL inspection, Telstra Stadium officials were confident work done over the last two days would ensure the playing surface met all requirements.

Telstra Stadium deputy chief executive officer Daryl Kerry said he was confident work completed in the previous 36 hours had put the stadium in "really good shape for Saturday night" and didn't anticipate any further problems.

He said the stadium would have been ready for Sydney to train on, but said it was more a case that the Swans had wanted to do a specific type of work on the ground.

Thompson said Geelong would press ahead with its training session scheduled for Telstra Stadium on Friday.

Roos said while he would have preferred Sydney to train at Telstra in the lead-up to the game, it wouldn't affect the Swans' performance as they had already played around 14 games at the venue.

Meanwhile, Thompson said the Cats haven't spoken a lot about last year's dramatic semi-final loss to the Swans, but admitted it would still be lodged in the minds of his players going into Saturday's encounter.

"I've got no doubts that it's going to affect them for the rest of their lives," Thompson said.

"Playing the same side this week people will be thinking about it for most of the day on Saturday and even just before the start of the game."

He dismissed any suggestion Saturday's game was a grudge match for his team.

However, Thompson cheerfully admitted he was "very happy" Sydney forward Nick Davis, who kicked four critical final-quarter goals in the semi-final clash with Sydney, would miss this week's match with a hamstring injury.

With a National Rugby League game scheduled for Telstra Stadium on Sunday, Kerry said there were back-up plans in terms of extra turf and personnel on standby if running repairs were needed following the AFL fixture.

In team news, Geelong dropped four players and called up debutant Brent Prismall, Charlie Gardiner and Mark Blake with fullback Matthew Scarlett returning from suspension.

Sydney made just the one enforced change with Davis replaced by veteran midfielder Paul Williams, who was missed last week's game through injury.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP