THE PRESSURE to perform in this weekend's cut-throat preliminary finals won't be exclusive to the players, with the AFL's best umpires vying for the honour of officiating in the Grand Final.
With only three spots up for grabs in the season decider, Matt Stevic, Brett Rosebury and Jeff Dalgleish will adjudicate Friday night's Fremantle and Hawthorn final, while Simon Meredith, Dean Margetts and Ray Chamberlain will oversee Saturday night's West Coast and North Melbourne clash.
"We have six umpires running around in the prelim finals (and) we've cut that down from eight last week, so it will be out of these six that continue through to the grand final," AFL head umpires coach Hayden Kennedy told AFL.com.au's Whistleblowers program.
"(They're) obviously very hard decisions to make as they have been since week one of finals, but we'll look at their form and evaluate everything they do over the weekend.
"We'll then sit down as a coaching group on Monday and go through it pretty thoroughly and come up with our three umpires (and) the emergency for the Grand Final."
A good performance in the preliminaries could see West Australians Margetts and Dalgleish make their AFL Grand Final debuts.
Kennedy said an "incorrect decision" by umpire Scott Jeffery to penalise Hawthorn's Grant Birchall for deliberate out of bounds in last Friday night's semi-final against Adelaide didn't cost the veteran whistleblower a spot this weekend.
"We have to look at the whole year and the form leading in to the final," said Kennedy.
"That particular decision didn't cost Scott."
