O'Leary alright. The lino on the far side atrocious.
Mark Rule flagged offside a definite Dzeko goal. Put Bosnia out of the tournament in other words.
Mark Rule - what kind of level has he refereed / assistant refereed at?
In my opinion, only officials who have refereed in professional leagues should be given games at the World Cup.
I know O'Leary is an A-League ref and that's good enough for me. (Interestingly, how many A-League matches did he ref last season?)
But Mark Rule (and fellow assistant Hintz) - only ASB Premiership? Not a good enough level.
ASB Premiership is probably a weaker league than the Conference National and some semi-pro regional leagues in England and weaker than the State Leagues in Australia.
If people overseas (and in Bosnia) found out that the assistant refs for an important World Cup game only had experience reffing in such a minor amateur league with crowds of fifty (Otago) to a few hundred, they would find it laughable.
The lino got it wrong. Ok it happens the world over in every league. Unfortunately its the 4th offside wrong at this tournament I read and the only one that has decided a game. Its just the glare on this tournament magnifies it into a hanging offence where as Sunday league out the back of some park, the worst he would get is being told to fuck off by two men and a dog.
Didn't notice the assistant refs much I suppose all season despite watching all games on TV. I do notice the refs.
The A-League website bizarrely never lists match officials in its match reports - a major short-fall:
http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/aleague/result...
My reckoning using Google (the A-League website is no bloody use since it lists no officials) is that Mark Rule's sum total of experience in professional matches last season was four Hyundai A-League matches as assistant referee (one in November, two in December, one in January). Other assistant refs were used in other Phoenix home games such as Ryan Gallagher:
https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid=chrome-ins...
Hintz was assistant in eight matches:
https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid=chrome-ins...
O'Leary reffed six A-League matches last season:
https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid=chrome-ins...
Mark Rule is easily the least experienced of the three OFC officials at the current World Cup and was called up at the last minute to replace the injured Ravinesh Kumar from Fiji.
Norbert Hauata from Tahiti has previously been senior to Rule and Hintz at FIFA age group tournaments. Hauata was on the referees list at last year's u-17 World Cup in the UAE and reffed two games. Rule was only on the assistant ref's list and was Hauata's assistant in those two games. O'Leary didn't attend:
http://boxscorenews.com/ofc-match-officials-appoin...
O'Leary, Hintz and Kumar were the OFC officials at the u-20 World Cup in Turkey last June- July (O'Leary the ref) and the team did two group games:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_FIFA_U-20_World_...
O'Leary's CV is impressive:
O'Leary has extensive experience in reffing internationals in Oceania since 2004; the OFC Champions League; the 2007 and 2009 club World Cups; plus the 2007, 2009, 2013 FIFA u-20 World Cups: