THE AFL’s decision to quietly abandon the emergency field umpire got its first test at the weekend.
Last night’s St Kilda-North Melbourne game was officiated by only three umpires at Marvel Stadium.
Field umpire Jeff Dalgleish strained his calf in the warm-up, leaving the officials to take charge of the game a whistle-blower down.
Leigh Fisher, Nicholas Brown and Nicholas McGinness umpired a game in which the Saints won by 30 points.
It’s understood the late nature of Dalgleish’s setback meant a replacement couldn’t be sourced.
But the league’s move to four field umpires this year came at the expense of a designated emergency umpire, with the officials spread more thinly across the competition.
The instruction to officials in the circumstance in which an umpire goes down is to revert to the three-umpire method put in place in 1994.
The AFL has maintained an emergency goal umpire, however.