I agree he bottled the red card, but I think he got the free kick/penalty incident right. Its tight, but the right decision.
I think the best I could say would be, the officials were quite good,,,, compared to some of the specimens we’ve had to put up with.
Bang on - most in the West Stand around me said the same. She was a yard off the pace, looked at the ref for confirmation of every throw, and didn’t flag for any fouls. She was face on with the last minute free kick, yet didn’t raise her flag. I genuinely thought she may be new, but a quick search shows she’s actually been around a bit and done some big games. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...minghams-Sunday-Leagues-Womens-World-Cup.html Maybe just an off day for her, but a very poor performance today indeed. Ref was ok though tbf.
Yep, 2 decisions I can think of she got spot on, despite our crowd. But a few others she was just not up with play
I don't think she missed them, rather she waited for an indication from the ref before making a " decision".
It was bizarre. Almost like the ref said pre-match, ‘all decisions are mine, I’ll confer if required’. It stood out quite a bit to us. That said, she was still a yard off pace.
I honestly think the opinions of the officials would have been far worse if we had lost. The one positive point was the ref tried to let the game play without constant blowing up.
I watched the whole match on iFollow and, as I said yesterday, it was striking that every time the ball went out west stand side and the lineswoman was in camera shot she stood stock still, arms by her side, waiting for the referee to point one way or the other. Then she flagged whichever way he said. Now this may well have been on orders from the referee - we will never know - but it begs the question what is the point in her being there? Many a time we have seen penalties given following a linesman flagging furiously and then putting the flag across the chest before the ref points to the spot. Obviously this didn't happen yesterday and, from some way behind, the referee gave a free kick. It's blatantly obvious in cases like this that the two officials should be conferring before a decision is made. It was just too tight not to. But no - he gave it where he did and thank goodness we have a dead ball expert like Cadden in the team. In fact we have more than one, such is the quality in our squad this season.
Yes he certainly let some incidents ride while other less obvious fouls he blew up for. You can't like them all the time can you
I'll tell you what really pees me off is when the "assistant" waits for a signal from the ref to flag for a throw in, particularly when they have got a better view than the ref, case in point being the attempted clearance by Kane clearly blocked into touch by the Plymouth player.
I thought the ref was poor actually. Seemed to let too much go without getting his cards out. It's one thing to let the game flow but to let a player make dirty challenge after dirty challenge isn't letting the game flow, it's reckless.
I sit in the West Stand where she was in front of us all game. You’ve pretty much summed up what we were saying all game tbf. That, and that despite she was almost concentrating on the off-sides more, she was still a yard behind the pace for them.
I forgot to give her credit for the offsides she gave in the first half, usually against Hardie. Maybe the ref had a quiet word with her (“keep yer flag down!”)
There's a Plymouth vlog on YouTube where you can see the incident well, despite it being from behind the goal. It would appear that the officials got it spot on. The free kick was definitely not a penalty from what I could see, even from the Ponty. As mentioned earlier, the female assistant had a complete nightmare. Behind play, very hesitant and some obvious errors against both sides. I thought that the ref was not great first half, but second half was very good. Overall he let a lot go in what was a very physical game. As an aside, the ref was very good on Tuesday as well with the exception of a couple of obvious errors, both in our favour as it happens.