‘I think it certainly helps’: Veteran AFL umpire says what fans think about big Brownlow issue

Seasoned AFL umpire Simon Meredith has spoken in favour of having statistics at his disposal to aid Brownlow Medal voting.

The 527-game official also said he ‘doewould have awarded a marking interference free kick to Jamie Elliott late in Collingwood’s preliminary final loss to Brisbane.

How the umpires are permitted to go about voting has been a contentious topic of conversation since Matt Rowell stunned the AFL world by surging past Nick Daicos and teammate Noah Anderson to win the Brownlow Medal.

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Rowell incredibly polled 11 Brownlow votes across four games where he did not poll a single coaches’ vote, again raising questions of why the umpires aren’t permitted to use statistics to guide their post-game verdicts.

Further, fan outrage also sparked after Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera received two votes instead of three for his matchwinning four goals — with two coming in the last 10 seconds of the game — and 34 disposals against Melbourne in Round 20.

Speaking on Fox Footy’s AFL 360, Meredith said he’d like the benefit of having statistics to guide his best-on-ground voting for the Brownlow Medal.

“I think it certainly helps,” Meredith, who’s set to umpire his 10th AFL grand final on Saturday, said on Wednesday night.

“It would help us do it a lot quicker, but also, just having every piece of information would eliminate these isolated instances where (what the umpires poll) sometimes doesn’t marry up with what the greater footy world sees.

“So, I think whatever info you can get helps.”

It comes after league chief executive Andrew Dillon spoke on AFL 360 on Tuesday night about the chatter around umpires getting stat access.

“There’s a bit of talk about (if) they should have access to stats,” he said. “The leadership group last year from the umpires were comfortable as it is. We’ll have a chat with them in the off-season again.”

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Meredith was also asked by host Gerard Whateley what he’d do if the Starcevich-Elliott incident presented itself in similar form in Saturday’s grand final, with Meredith saying he’d be “more inclined” to pay a free kick.

“I’d like to see the ball smashed away, clearer contact with the ball — that’s with the benefit of seeing it on super slow-motion and things like that,” he said.

It comes after Dillon expressed a different viewpoint on Fox Footy on Tuesday night.

“I reckon you can look at it replay after replay and maybe have a different conversation. We think the umpire from the position he was in, he made a call that was certainly the right call,” he said.

Asked if it happened again on Saturday if we should expect the same play-on call, Dillon said: “I think if you’ve got the umpire in that position with that happening, absolutely.”