West Australian boundary umpire Nathan Doig will officiate in his first AFL Grand Final this weekend after being named alongside WA field umpire Brett Rosebury.

Rosebury, who was also announced as 2011 All-Australian umpire, will officiate in his fourth AFL Grand Final, while Doig will make his debut as the fifth WA umpire selected for an AFL Grand Final.

Doig, who has umpired 203 senior games including 137 AFL games, commenced his umpiring career in the WAFL in 2002. He umpired in the 2003 and 2004 WAFL Grand Finals before being added to the AFL umpiring panel in 2005.

WA High Performance Umpire’s Coach Darryl Sinclair congratulated Doig and Rosebury on being selected for this year’s AFL Grand Final and said it was an outstanding achievement for both umpires.

WAFL umpire Scott McPhee will become the first field umpire since 2007 to officiate in his first Grand Final when he teams up with experienced campaigners Craig Hendrie and Stuart Parry for today’s League contest.

McPhee has had an outstanding season and umpired several of the biggest games to earn selection in his first WAFL League Grand Final.

Craig Hendrie will umpire in his sixth grand final and Stuart Parry will officiate in his fourth consecutive Grand Final. Only Ross Capes with an amazing eight grand finals has officiated in more.

Hendrie and Parry bring plenty of finals experience to the team and are aiming to perform well and not have an impact on the game.

Goal umpire Emmy French has created her own piece of history by being named the most promising youngster in the WAFL umpires’ awards night during the week.

French won the Shadforth Financial Group Rising Star award, which is awarded to a first or second year umpire who is yet to be appointed to league football.

The award has an outstanding history of recognising AFL potential with current AFL umpires Luke Farmer, Todd Keating, Dale Edwick, Nathan Doig and Jace Collingridge all previous winners.

French also won the David Shawcross Medal as the most improved goal umpire for 2011.

With the restructure of the Talent Pathway for umpiring, it was recognized that our future WAFL and AFL umpires needed to have opportunities at a senior community level before progressing to the WAFL. This has led to the development of The Junior District Talent Squad program.

The JDTS program has been in place for three years, and has seen 13 umpires progress to Senior Community Umpiring (WAAFL and PFL) with another seven umpires being promoted to WAFL.

We have three Junior District Talent Squads in place being the North, South and Peel. The aim of these squads is to take talented junior umpires and provide them with the training and match day coaching necessary to progress from Junior umpiring to Senior umpiring.

Amy McQuade will showcase the WAFL’s increasing number of female field umpires on the MCG next year after being named the 2011 All-Australian field umpire at the AFL Women’s National Championships.

McQuade, who joined the WAFL panel midway through this season, entered the carnival determined to perform well and give herself the best opportunity to excel.

Her reward for being named the umpire of the championships is the opportunity to officiate in the curtain raiser before the Collingwood and Melbourne clash next season.

She will also be part of the training sessions for the women’s academy and attend VFL training.

“I can’t wait,” McQuade said.