https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...mol-howard-webb-andre-marriner-darren-england Interesting views from Darren England. I think all the extra help of VAR has lowered standards and made them more lazy and less likely to trust their judgement. It's the same with Cricket with Dickie Bird saying the other week how easy umpires have it nowadays.
Spot on. It's getting as daft as Rugby League. Those refs are scared of their own farts fallowing them about. Simple try beneath the posts is a video ref checking a forward pass and a knock on.
It's ridiculous in Cricket. They love going to the third umpire to check for a stumping or run out even when it's clear as day it isn't out. There will become a time there is no umpire on the field.
Ally Mccoist said in commentary of the Sheff Utd v Blackburn game it should be at every game in every competition from the start. I agree.
I don't really agree about cricket, in fact it seems to often validate some really good no-out calls for LBW appeals. Though I'd argue the run-out the other week where the batsman was clearly in his crease but because there was a frame where nothing was grounded he was given out wasn't really in the spirit of the game.
I’d agree on football, it is being used as an excuse to not make decisions. Cricket though I think has improved off the back of it. In fairness it’s quite impressive how many LBWs the international umpires get right. Yes they have the ‘umpires call’ in their favour but the success rate is still pretty good. Harold Bird used to give LBWs not out if they were hitting middle pole half way up from the quicks - and barely ever gave a spinner an LBW. I’d wager he’d have had to start giving more out. DRS has stopped batsmen just padding up to the spinner - many an hour was wasted in the nineties and early 2000’s, and presumably before, watching a spinner fail to make a batsman play a shot, despite bowling balls that invariably were going on to hit the stumps. And Dickie moaned about umpiring being easier well before DRS. Didn’t even like the use of the third umpire for run outs, checking catches, no balls or boundary checks. He said it years ago ‘the only decision an umpire still has to make is lbw and caught behind. It’s ridiculous’. Maybe so. But a much higher percentage of decisions are right. Not sure VAR in football can claim the same. Still bizarre decisions made. Slowing footage down changes the picture acutely - football, rugby of both codes, have seen decisions made purely on a slow motion replay without the context of a full speed play through to mitigate, plus decisions made by people who don’t seem to have any understanding of the game, for example Rashford’s goal v city and some of the red cards we’ve seen issued. So I’m not sure if refs are getting worse or if they just weren’t ever that good. One thing for certain, if they rolled VAR out in the EFL we still wouldn’t get a penalty.
Var seems quite random re if,and when it's applied. Cricket has it pretty much spot on. The smarter umpires know which way to give an lbw decision so the drs gets it right. If you ever get chance to watch Jim laker taking 10 wkts against Australia, watch the umpire giving the law's. Not saying he got any wrong but he was very enthusiastic.
