A-Leagues 23/24, The Other Matches Thread

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RR

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Utterly ridiculous. Such a poor decision all round from the officials.

In slo-mo, the contact looks way worse than it really was. They both stuck legs out & the Victory player's leg got in front. Just chuck out the lazy yellow card and play on.

Unfortunately with a ref like Kersey the nod by VAR to have a second look at it would immediately have put into his mind that the two most recent similar offences (Payne, O'Shea) were red carded, hence he just better follow suit. 

I'm sure there are other (better) refs in the league who would've had the common sense to distinguish that this incident was totally different.

Kersey is about the only ref I’ve seen in the A league who has ignored the VAR recommendation and he’s done it twice. And if other similar incidents are getting carded, then it seems fair. Still having issues with Keep Up so haven’t seen it yet…May change my mind!

Edit: yeh, that looks ridiculous, but getting ridiculous calls against the Victory has been suspiciously common this season. Both Payne and O’Shea were late, missed the ball and got the player who they could clearly see. Here Wood gets to the ball first and can’t see the player who arrives second and can see and avoid Wood. I’m doubtful there’s a foul against Wood there.