In The Zone - The End

82Mb !

Should I expect 4 times the amount of quality match analysis, 4 times the amount of humour, or 4 times the amount of kazoo?

Think of this as a price rise. But do not expect any improvement in service. We are the Vodafone of podcasts.

Yeah I stuffed up the conversion of the file the first time. Should be much smaller now.

I think last year , you boys spoke of doing a fever commentary over a game. With the banter being at such a high level at the mo, why not giving that a shot again. Strike while the iron is hot - as they say....

So much so. Poor Kevin  Muscat will get a severe slagging even when he's not involved in anything. Well for just being who he is.

Poddy probably late this week.

Smithy crook and has lost his voice (Is that cheering I hear?) so probably won't record until Friday earlist.

Get another grumpy lawyer to read Smith's parts.

tifo? is that like a tikataka move?

#InTheZone 154 is out yellowfever.co.nz/podcasts.

The pod reflects on the first Hutt Wreck experience that saw Wellington Phoenix and Melbourne City play out a 0-0 draw, before turning their attention this weekend's fixture with help from Jets' fan, Grant Furner. Elsewhere New Zealand Football make a spectacular u-turn on their pay to play policy for youth internationals, and the WeeNix go goal crazy in the ASB Premiership.

I also dialled into the Squadron's podcast. You can find it here from about 50 mins. http://www.newcastlefootball.net/home/series/the-j...

Smeltz can head a ball.

Link for the photos of Patrick and the sausage rolls please?

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ATPhoto/36083160070...

Thanks. Brilliant!

#InTheZone 155 is out yellowfever.co.nz/podcasts.

The pod is back to discuss how Wellington Phoenix FC robbed themselves of vital points against Newcastle Jets, the dreaded away trip to Melbourne Victory with help from fan Ben Williams, the impending arrival of Joel Griffith and departure of Tyler Boyd, and the ASB Premiership.

I missed this one. Downloaded last night but fell asleep.

Never mind - the next one will be all warm fuzzies and circle jerking!

Did this happen out of interest?

‪#‎InTheZone‬ 156 is out yellowfever.co.nz/podcasts.

We won away to Victory. No seriously, we did.

good intro tune.

Good podcast and I always enjoy it. It's like a bloody drug of some kind and then you talk about Law.... I can't resist such is my weakness for those discussions.

tl;dr - A player does not get an advantage from being lazy and you have to assess each offside decision in isolation from another.

Quick review: 2 parts to offside offence - You must be in an offside position AND involved in active = Offside offence. Most confusion is based around being in offside position only and is why the arm gets thrown up by the defence the instant the ball is played through. It’s when a player is in an offside position AND becomes involved in active play (interferes with play, gains an advantage from being in that position or interferes with an opponent which are all specifically defined in LOTG) at the same time is when the offence occurs.

To say that a player has an advantage by being 'lazy' or 'less than prodigious' in getting back to halfway/offside line is kinda irrelevant because he cannot legally get involved in the play until the offside line passes him putting him onside so ipso facto, how does he get an advantage? I do get the fundamental point irrespective of the laws that was made by Dale that a lazy player benefits from being beyond the offside line in the long term but then if you are not assessing each phase of play in isolation for offside, at what point do you decide when a phase of play is over? After 10 passes? 20? 30? When possession changes? Some teams consider 30 passes 1 phase and for assessing offside, you can't look at that as 1 phase as you may get a flag some 30secs after the original offence which would be just crazy. It’s an extreme point but it highlights a succinct point - you have to assess each offside instance in isolation and then it’s the next phase of play so you reassess the next one again.

If you look what you talk about on the podcast, when Boxall breaks through, Burns occupies an offside position but is not involved in active play. When he does become involved in active play, he is not in an offside position. At no point in time is he both in an offside position AND involved in active play thus, he is not offside. Granted some people view that whole event as one play/phase, but it’s not. Let’s say that the play slowed down, about 3-4 defenders catch up along with 2 other attackers but Burns still scores some 10 seconds later than he did. Do you still call the offside and go back up to halfway for the offence? You cannot reward a defence if they switch off to the lazy attacker coming back or become/are oblivious to potential threat a lazy attacker poses or choose to ignore a potential threat a lazy attacker poses. That’s the risk they take.

I'll give you a scenario below whereby it's not as screamingly obvious as what happened on Sunday but you are asking for the goal to be wiped out much the same.

The ball is played out to Hard News whom is onside on the right wing. He receives the pass 5 yards over half way. Smithy is out on the left wing but is in an offside position by a 2 yards at the time the ball is played to News. Newsy carries play down the right flank some 30 yards and crosses to the back stick for Smithy to head home whom, at the time of the cross, is onside and then celebrates in front of the Fever Zone.

Do you go back to the offside at halfway because he was in an offside position back then? He is not being a lazy attacker in that instance but the scenario is quite similar.

That's not very believable... 

...carries a sausage 30 yards, definitely; but carries play 30 yards? Tui commercial.

It was a typo. Should have said 3 yards.

I this'd Chris for the use of ipso facto.

How do you know Smithy isn't being a lazy attacker?

Fixed.

Appreciate the lengthy response. I think I acknowledge the difficulty in how to apply the laws.

Wasn't the rule different a while ago to allow these passive offside players? Or did that never apply to player who subsequently got involved in the play (as opposed to Boxy hanging out on the touchline)? Were there issues involved with that leading to the law as it is now?

It's been like that for quite a while now I think.

Certainly LoTG has a big section at the back that goes through the various offside scenarios for a few seasons now.

Mexico made use of it v AWs.

Since 2005.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2010/apr/13/the-question-why-is-offside-law-genius

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/12/15/offside-goal/

I’m 38 and have been at this refereeing lark 24 years so I’ve had this LotG thing my entire life. What you say is pretty much on the nose and there was a massive re-write of offside at some point but I can’t quite remember when. I want to say somewhere around 2001 but am not sure.

Originally it was that you could not be closer to the goal line than the 2nd to last defender at the moment was played forward by a team mate. The end.

You could 1 weekend run your left winger offside all game to draw the defence over and stick the ball up the right and you would not get pinged for it cause logically, that guy was not playing the ball. The week later, you would get nailed for it even though the offside player was 50 yards away. Then it came down to things like you say ‘when did he get involved?’ Basically they re-wrote it to get rid of such erroneous and regional/localised interpretations but also wanted to really bring the focus into where the active area of play was to allow for more goals. Thus it stopped that player whom was not on/about the ball from being pinged for offside every other weekend.

Lost your credibility right there.

Smithy is not lazy when it comes to attacking people. He makes sure that he uses his intellect and dialect to win.