EXPERIENCED umpiring trio Matt Stevic, Simon Meredith and Shaun Ryan have been named to officiate the 2017 Toyota AFL Grand Final.
Stevic (to umpire his fifth Grand Final), Meredith (fifth) Ryan (sixth) were announced as the umpires on Tuesday morning, with Brett Rosebury (seven Grand Finals) listed as the emergency.
Saturday’s match will be the first time Ryan has adjudicated the Grand Final since 2011. Ryan retired after the match, and said he took convincing to re-join the ranks by umpire’s coach Hayden Kennedy in 2015.
"I was pretty happily retired at the time and I hadn’t really thought about coming back to be honest," he said.
Ryan highlighted the difficulty he had returning to the sport and getting his body accustomed to the stresses of the job, but said it was great to be back.
"I had some pretty dark days there early on when I was trying to get back," he said.
"I was trying to get back into the speed work and I did a hamstring in the first month and a calf in the second month, but eventually the body came around and it’s been really enjoyable."
The umpires will be wearing light blue during the match to avoid confusion with either team, despite wearing grey when Adelaide and Richmond last clashed in round six.
Saturday’s boundary umpires will be Robert Haala, Mitchell Lefevre, Matthew Konetschka, Damien Cusack and Brett Dalgleish (emergency).
Luke Walker, Adam Wojcik and Matthew Dervan (emergency) will be the goal umpires.