Being a totally impartial spectator, I am at a little bit of a loss as to how best keep the objectives of this blog site intact after Friday's Roar V Melbourne game. So let's be objective about this: half time foul count - Roar 8 & Melbourne 10. Half time yellow card count: Roar 1 & Melbourne 0. Full time foul count - Roar 20 & Melbourne 20. Very even match one would think. But wait, full time yellow card count - Roar 4 & Melbourne 1. Oh, the Roar must have been very naughty in the second half. Yea right!!
Ben Williams had a fairly good, but far from perfect first half. Pity about the second half. His positioning was very average, at one point running from nearly halfway to award a free kick to Melbourne. His positioning behind the ball, instead of at an angle made this call even more dubious. Also, in a less than perfect position, Mr Williams awarded a Melbourne throw in after his assistant referee, (in a good position), has signalled a Roar throw in. Apart from a few biased Melbourne supporters, about 17 000 other people also saw it as a Roar throw in as well. So Benny Boy, revise your ABC and put some trust in your AR's please.
What was more irritating was the lack of consistency in what constituted a foul. As the impartial spectator that I am, (dressed in orange), it seemed that a number of fouls were committed against Roar players and they were not pulled up. Even the Foxtel twits, I mean commentators, were amazed at the fouls that weren't identified as such. Interestingly, free kicks to the Roar tended to be given when it was in their defensive third and free kicks to Melbourne tended to be awarded when they were close to the Roar's 18 yard box. Hmm.
Finally, I think something needs to be done about the targetting of particular players by the opposing team. I know it is not just against the Roar, but since the young guns of Kruse and Zullo have been firing, they are not given any space and are brought down cheaply. Solution - persistent infringements, (yellow card), can be awarded against a team for constantly fouling one player. Give the captain a verbal warning and card the next player to put in a cheap shot. The young players in the A-League need to be tough, but they also deserve a fair go to develop and not end up bruised and sprained - or worse.
Who was the best ref this round? Not sure, perhaps Matthew Breeze. What do you think?
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2 comments:
I like Matthew Breeze because he is such an independent thinker - will never be accused of being swayed by skill or favouritism. But there was the matter of the disallowed goal by Adelaide.
re Kruse and Zullo - in principle we should be refing to Asian standards - which means yellow cards when you cut down your opponent. There doesn't appear to be a refing standard for the A_L which is confusing for all.
Yeah, the targeting of players is a problem.
Perhaps the worst example for me was the game when Roar targeted Felipe so effectively that he picked up an injury within the first half and couldn't play for weeks afterwards. That was coincidentally also the week Kruse and Zullo were introduced to the Roar.
ps. you should open up commenting on the blog to people who don't have a Google account.
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