• Follow the Age Sport on Twitter
• Club-by-club guide to the 2015 Brownlow Medal

Rohan Connolly will be here at noon on Monday to answer your questions. Join him at that time or get in early and leave a question in the comments right away.

Let's get one thing clear from the start. Umpiring didn't cost either Fremantle or North Melbourne their preliminary finals.

Both the Dockers and Kangaroos did more than enough to  blow their chances through wasted opportunities and errors, and  were both overrun by better opponents.

But that shouldn't let the umpires of either game off the hook. Because these were two games in which over-officiousness ruled, certainly impacting on momentum at crucial stages, and drawing far too much attention to the three blokes on the ground who should be attracting the least.

The tone was set early on Friday night when Hawthorn's Matt Suckling ran into Hayden Ballantyne at jogging pace and somehow drew an off-the-ball free kick to gift the Hawks their first goal. And their second was just as unfathomable, a 50-metre penalty paid for another off-the-ball incident in which contact was, to say the least, minor.

And the decisions, or non-decisions, seemed to keep coming at critical moments, an obvious in-the-back decision not paid to Michael Walters in the last term when the Dockers had early momentum and were still more than a rough chance.

Saturday night was, if anything, worse. North Melbourne still held an 11-point lead just on half-time when Nick Dal Santo made the slightest contact with Luke Shuey and conceded another soft free kick paid by the ubiquitous Ray Chamberlain – by this stage the free kick count running two-to-one in the home side's favour.

Another shocker came at another big moment in the third term, the Eagles with their noses in front, and Mark LeCras wrapped up in a superb tackle that  would have been a real team-lifter for the Roos had not another off-the-ball free kick been plucked from nowhere for Robbie Tarrant's alleged hold on Jack Darling.

The back-breaker for North, and the worst of the lot, however, came when Ben Jacobs had his legs taken from under him near goal and not only didn't earn a free kick but conceded one for holding the ball. As morale-sappers go, they don't get much bigger than that moment.

As is often the case, the final free kick numbers didn't really tell the tale. It was when and where they were paid, and most critically, what for. Which on both Friday and Saturday nights, seemed often to be for not much at all.

No one expects a free-for-all just because a game is a final. But it really did appear on the weekend as though advice to the six umpires to make sure they had control early was taken to extreme lengths. Let's hope there's not a repeat in the game that matters most.

There will be plenty of people interested to see which of Chamberlain, Dean Margetts, Simon Meredith, Jeff Dalgleish, Matt Stevic and Brett Rosebury end up with a grand final appointment.

Unlike many, I'm prepared to give those half-dozen from the weekend another chance. But it's fair to say any who earn the grand final gig may be getting it more on reputation than their most recent form.

THE LAST WORD

The myth

Here we go again. Media organisations desperately trying to drum up the old "State pride on the line" story about the grand final. Give us a spell. It was rubbish in the early '90s and, 25 years after the off icial renaming to a national competition, it's an even bigger pile of tosh. If neutral Victorian fans choose to throw their allegiance behind Hawthorn on Saturday, it will because they admire the Hawks or dislike the Eagles as clubs, not because of where they come from. If they get behind West Coast, it's most likely because they're sick of the Hawks' dominance. For Pete's sake, can you stop perpetuating this nonsense.

The scores

It's been a few years (2011) since the two grand final teams were also the two heaviest scoring of the season. That doesn't mean Saturday is going to produce a free-flowing shootout, but it is at least just reward to sides which value kicking goals as much as stopping them. Sure, the Eagles and Hawks have won their way into the big one with solid defensive performances. But both are also prepared to take the odd calculated gamble and back their disposal skills to keep the ball moving forward. At a time when the game needs as much attractive footy as it can get, these two teams are both among the best to watch.

The beaten – I

Where to for Fremantle? The Dockers have never been as well-prepared to have a crack at a flag as in 2015 and still fell two wins short. I don't subscribe to the "window closed" theory simply on the back of some impending retirements. But Ross Lyon has said that ever since the 2013 grand final, he wanted to find more goals. Instead, the Dockers scored fractionally less last year and another eight points less this season. They ranked 11th in 2015. The two highest scoring teams are playing off . It's a pretty simple message. And it should be a far bigger priority than preaching a defensive mantra that is already adequate.

The beaten – II

And North Melbourne? For a second year, the Roos have to determine how much weight to attach to two good finals wins and a top-four finish as opposed to the bigger picture, which in 2015 was eighth position with one less win than last year. Have they improved? Their second half of the season was consistent, the addition of Shaun Higgins and Jarred Waite made them more dangerous up forward, and a couple of their oldest stagers in Brent Harvey and Michael Firrito had great seasons. In contrast to the Dockers, however, defence needs to be a priority, the Roos leaking too many scores, finishing the year ranked only 12th for defence.