The AFL has opted for experience in selecting its Preliminary Finals panel of umpires this weekend.
The Friday night field umpire’s team of Rosebury, Stevic and Ryan have a combined total of 112 finals including 18 grand finals of experience. Boundary umpires, Dalgleish, LeFevre, Thomson and Doig take in 83 finals games including 10 grand finals. Brett Dalgleish does not yet have a grand final next to his name in 12 finals appearances. In the goals neither Piperno nor Williams have a grand final but both have finals experience totalling 16 games.
On Saturday in Perth the field umpires, Nicholls, Chamberlain and Meredith have 77 games of finals experience including 9 grand finals. Boundary umpires, Gordon, Konetschka, Tomkins and Marantelli combine for 70 games of finals experience including 7 grand finals. Goal umpires Wojcik and Dervan have 34 finals and 4 grand finals combined with Wojcik accounting for all but 6 finals of those tallies.
Emergency umpires, Findlay and Harris in the field, Kenny-Bell and Rogers in the goals are all aspiring to do their first grand finals.
We wish all of our umpires the best of luck.