Brett Rosebury, Ray Chamberlain and Shaun Ryan will all umpire the rematch after the AFL’s umpiring department labelled their performances on the biggest stage of all a success.
“We thought they did well last week in a pretty pressurised game. They’re familiar with the teams, the occasion and they handled the pressure really well,” AFL umpires director Jeff Gieschen told afl.com.au.
“We just think it’s sensible to put the whole lot out there again for another opportunity.
“From an individual perspective, they all did well, but the thing we look for is the collective team performance.
“Collectively, they were calm, composed and let the players play footy, but when there was clear free kicks, they awarded them.”
Gieschen said the umpires were not directed to allow play to be more continuous, despite the fact many passages of play seemed to be allowed to progress without a whistle blown.
“Nothing changes from week to week. People will look at that performance and think, they must have got a different set of instructions,” he said.
“What happens is, by grand final day, we’ve got our three best field umpires, our two best goal umpires and our four best boundary umpires out there.
“They’ve worked their way throughout the home-and-away season, through the finals period, and they get to the grand final.
“They understand the laws, the interpretations, and they apply them well.”
Boundary umpires Ian Burrows, Adam Coote, Mark Thomson and Mark Foster will also remain the same, as will goal umpires David Dixon and Luke Walker.
Emergency umpires Stephen McBurney (field), Chris Gordon (boundary) and Chelsea Roffey (goal) will all stay the same, as will all match officials, including interchange stewards and timekeepers.
Join the grand final conversation on Twitter: use #AFLGF in your tweets.
