Today's ref is ...

[bocadillo]

... Uriah F Rennie.


Kicked off the Premier League list for being so crap, he's back on there now but has only had 2 top-flight games so far this season.

Doesn't seem quite so card-happy as he used to be; has managed not to show a single card in a quarter of his games this season and has only shown more than two cards in one of his eight games.

The only time that he got his red card out this season was at Oakwell for the visit of Doncaster. Last season Barnsley had a player sent off in both home and away games with the Belle Vue side - but this year they went for broke and finished up with nine men as Uriah showed red twice. It sounds as though he had little option though, particularly in the first incident when the Donny player finished up over the fence and into the crowd, courtesy of an over-energetic tackle by a Barnsley defender with less than 20 minutes on the clock.

Averaging less than 2 cards a game - I'll wager that we'll see more than that tomorrow!

 

[bocadillo]

Averaging less than 2 cards a game - I'll wager that we'll see more than that tomorrow!

Glad to see the old fool didn't disappoint me.

 

[Fox Fan]

Glad to see the old fool didn't disappoint me.

I thought he did pretty well to be honest. One of the better refs of the season.

 

[bocadillo]

I thought he did pretty well to be honest. One of the better refs of the season.

I actually think you are right. But I think he did well because he is his own man and largely ignores a lot of the ridiculousness that is the present-day guidelines. It won't do him much good with his assessment marks, but he is IMHO good for the game.

Have you got an opinion on the linesman to our left?

 

[Fox Fan]

I actually think you are right. But I think he did well because he is his own man and largely ignores a lot of the ridiculousness that is the present-day guidelines. It won't do him much good with his assessment marks, but he is IMHO good for the game.

Have you got an opinion on the linesman to our left?

Yes. He was crap. There were at least 2 occasions where it seemed to me he got it very wrong.

PLus he didnt seem to understand the new ofside guidlines - i.e if you don't interfere its not offside!

 

[webmaster]

Yes. He was crap. There were at least 2 occasions where it seemed to me he got it very wrong.

PLus he didnt seem to understand the new ofside guidlines - i.e if you don't interfere its not offside!

It's very difficult to judge tight offside decisions from behind the goal, and I don't think there were any really obvious ones he got wrong - despite the abuse he got from some of our fans.
I do think our players are offside far too often - Elvis in particular in the last few matches, even when he's out on the wing and just has to look across he regularly strays offside - there were some on Saturday where he looked well offside but the linesman still got a load of abuse for it. We should stop blaming officials for our players faults.
The best way to play against teams like Watford who push the defence forward and play an offside trap is to have players coming deep from midfield, we probably didn't do enough of that on Saturday.


Linesmen also have a difficult job with the 'interfering with play' thing. It's difficult to know immediately when a ball is played whether an offside player is interfering, it depends where the ball ends up. But if a linesman waits to see where the ball goes, then puts his flag up, he'll usually get loads of abuse from fans, players etc for making a late decision. I think sometimes linesmen are aware of this and feel under pressure to flag sooner than they really should.

 

[bocadillo]

I agree with you about Elvis and his getting caught off-side so often; during the 2nd half on Saturday, I actually turned to a neighbour and said "That bloke has the concentration span of a Jordan Stewart" But I can't agree that people sitting at an end always have to accept that a linesman gets it right. There were a couple of times on Saturday that the linesman in question gave off-side decisions against people who were clearly not offside when the ball was played - and it *is* clear from the angle at which he holds his flag which player he considers to be offside.

The new interpretation that match officials are now required to follow lay great importance on the 'interfering with play' aspect of the Law. This season we have seen linesmen taking more time to check for interference before signalling to the ref. This bloke never did it - his flag just shot into the air as soon as the ball was played. This IMHO makes him a 'bad' linesman and once a crowd has decided that an official is 'bad', they are very likely to react against his every decision - even the ones he does get right

I can only presume that this official was affected by the ball that hit him on the head in the first half - and even that decision he got wrong!!

 

[Durham Fox]

I agree with you about Elvis and his getting caught off-side so often; during the 2nd half on Saturday, I actually turned to a neighbour and said "That bloke has the concentration span of a Jordan Stewart" But I can't agree that people sitting at an end always have to accept that a linesman gets it right. There were a couple of times on Saturday that the linesman in question gave off-side decisions against people who were clearly not offside when the ball was played - and it *is* clear from the angle at which he holds his flag which player he considers to be offside.

The new interpretation that match officials are now required to follow lay great importance on the 'interfering with play' aspect of the Law. This season we have seen linesmen taking more time to check for interference before signalling to the ref. This bloke never did it - his flag just shot into the air as soon as the ball was played. This IMHO makes him a 'bad' linesman and once a crowd has decided that an official is 'bad', they are very likely to react against his every decision - even the ones he does get right

I can only presume that this official was affected by the ball that hit him on the head in the first half - and even that decision he got wrong!!

In one instance MdV was given off-side when he still hadnt got beyond the last defender when he received the ball. Pitifull Linesman.

Saw you on Sat Boc.

 

[bocadillo]

Saw you on Sat Boc.

But you decided not to speak? :icon_cry:

 

[Durham Fox]

But you decided not to speak? :icon_cry:

You were charging down the stairs.

 

[bocadillo]

You were charging down the stairs.

At my age I don't "charge" anywhere!

Are you sure I wasn't falling down the stairs?

 

[Dickovforengland!]

The two lino's were playing different interpretations of the offside rule I reckon. I sat right at the front near bernie's madder brother for most of match. I didn't really have much of a perception of depth up the pitch. There were a couple of off sides that from my, albeit less than ideal, view seemed comfortably on side.

I thought Rennie did pretty well, I actually think he is a decent ref for similar reasons to Boc. The main one being he doesn't take any sh1t from players, for some reason it really bugs me when players crowd the ref and start shouting in his face even if its city players.

 

[webmaster]

I can't agree that people sitting at an end always have to accept that a linesman gets it right.

I didn't say that!

 

[bocadillo]

I can't agree that people sitting at an end always have to accept that a linesman gets it right.

I didn't say that!

You're right. You didn't say that. But you did say that you didn't think the linesman in question got much wrong and your words suggested that you don't think our fans should have been critical of his performance during the game. Much the same thing really.