TOUGH Lion Belle Dawes will play in Brisbane's preliminary final next weekend, after the Tribunal overturned her charging citation for contact with Ainslie Kemp.

The Tribunal panel of chair Renee Enbom KC, Darren Gaspar and Michelle Dench took two hours and 15 minutes to clear Dawes of the charge, after the case and submissions took an hour and 15 minutes.

Enbom said while the incident at normal speed was "troubling", and tough to ascertain why the collision occurred in the way it did, it made Dawes' evidence particularly important.

The late bounce of the ball towards Dawes made Kemp move towards the footy, and the Tribunal weren't satisfied from the vision that the Lion jumped into the Hawk, with her foot on the ground at point of impact, the collision lifting her from the turf.

The most contentious part of the case surrounded the idea of unreasonable or unnecessary force, Dawes arguing she took every opportunity to avoid contact, while the AFL representative Sam Bird said her jump was unnecessary.

Dawes presented her own spoken evidence, with the support of prompts from representative Anna Cappellano and screenshots of the incident.

The Lion pleaded not guilty to the entire charge, saying both herself and Kemp had attempted to corral the loose footy, with both players having eyes for the ball.

An unexpected "bobble" saw Dawes' thinking pattern change from winning the footy – making it clear on several occasions that is her role in the team – to tackling Kemp.

Upon realising she wasn't properly set for a tackle, and that either head-to-head or head-to-shoulder contact would occur, she instinctively jumped out of the way, collecting Kemp in the process.

Dawes said the movement was an attempt at duty of care to Kemp, and she also tried to land vertically to avoid further collisions with the Hawk, who was lying on the ground.

Bird leant heavily on video footage of the incident, rather than stills, and prompted Dawes to agree with his assertations that Kemp had eyes on the ball the entire time, was standing in one spot without momentum (in comparison to the Lion) and was therefore in a vulnerable position.

He also suggested Dawes could have slowed her momentum and didn't have to leave the ground, at which the Lion countered her jump was an attempt to halt her running, and it was actually the best decision – if she had stayed low, it would have been a worse result for Kemp.

Dawes also commented while Hawthorn players did not remonstrate, there was heavy abuse from the ground, after which opponent Eliza West told her "it's all good, no one thinks you're a grub of the game".

The medical report said Kemp had passed her HIA, but spent 35 minutes off the ground (some of which was the half-time break), and needed painkillers and physio for whiplash. She missed a training session earlier this week, but has been cleared to play against Port Adelaide on Saturday.

The provided example of a charging case given to the Tribunal panel was one from 2013 between Justin Clarke (Brisbane) and Elliott Kavanagh (Essendon), such is the rarity of that type of citation.

Cappellano finished her submissions by reminding the Tribunal of the pace of the sport, and that "unfortunate circumstances can happen in a contact sport with an evolving nature".