R6 vs Perth Glory | Sun 2nd Dec | 7pm | Westpac Stadium

A few minutes before that Perth very nearly scored because Castro was left COMPLETELY free in our half, so I was 100% for a change being made to stop that. Would have loved to see how the tactic would have panned out if it wasn't for VARgate. For the short time between the sub & the red it seemed to be working ok, though not a long sample size.

I personally believe the VAR ( that I think stands for Victorious Australian Ruling) should be canned. It has done nothing to improve the game and for the Nix it is now a case of 11v 13 instead of 11v12.

Yes, I miss the old days before VAR when we always got a totally fair deal with refs :)

Agree though, I've always been against VAR.

I find it a lot harder to cope with than a bad live referee call. When a ref stuffs up I can partly justify it away more by thinking that it may have looked different from where the ref was standing etc. But being absolutely screwed by horrific decisions when they can view exactly what we all can, I can't deal, it's inexcusable. 

Also, for our beloved A-League, given the level of incompetence around, adding more incompetent people to the mix maybe just increases the risk of it all going horribly wrong.

Problem is the decision making, not the ability to access different views of the evidence!

I don't agree, it was clearly a terrible decision, but also showed one of the (many) inherent flaws in the VAR system.  Slowing things down, looking for different angles etc... can distort completely what actually happened, and incidents get so micro-analysed the big picture is lost.  For example, there are some still shots floating around on twitter that make it look like it is a dead set red card with studs up - on the replay of the VAR of the incident you can hear someone saying "freeze it, freeze it".  If that was a VAR/director showing a still of the incident, it COMPLETELY misleads someone from what actually happened.

Wot about the botched pen call. If it wasn’t bad enough, Rudes brings on Lowry to mark Castro upon his intro, red card given, Castro scores, lead lost, likely win taken away. It was a perfect storm of disaster for Nix. Shameful. 

So any moment now we receive the other 2 points.

Perhaps a fair outcome in the circumstances would be to get a bonus point (ie two points).

Unconscious bias is a good description. You can't really quantify the degree to which poor decisions impact on the Nix as compared to other clubs but it does seem to be the case that dubious officiating often seems to unfairly disadvantage struggling clubs, and we've been a struggling club for so long that our loser status is embedded in every football followers mind.

Might be an unpopular view but in my opinion, up until this VAR red card fiasco, VAR has in general been operating a lot better since the overhaul 5-6 weeks back. Pains me to say but VAR imo correctly upheld Kersy's decision not to award a penalty, however Kersey's failure to see a foul is a total mystery. 9 out of 10 refs would've automatically given a penalty for a foul that clearcut. And yet you can bet that if the incident was exactly replicated at the other end with Castro bursting into the box and Fenton pulling him down by the arm Kersey would've given in to his unconscious bias and blown for a penalty against the Nix, which would of course have been upheld by VAR.

I don't think that there has been a truer statement posted on this forum. 

I'm not even sure its bias of any kind, for years we have been the training ground for new refs. So logically we are going to be involved in more than a fair share of horror calls. Sure I get that the big derbies should have the best refs, but the FFA or whoever is running the league should have a panel of professional refs who cover all the games. Not just 3 full timers and a bunch of part time wannabes. Get them all trained to the same standard, support them with the best tools and bring the standard up!

I remember a cricket commentary discussion about this when Aussie had a great run under Steve Waugh and pre-DRS. The sense was that Aussie were getting a lot of 50/50 decisions go their way precisely because of this unconscious bias, and that obviously had a compounding effect and made it much more difficult for objectively weaker sides to even try to compete with them. And I think we're experiencing a bit of that too, in that over the last few years we have realistically been one of the weaker teams in the league, so bad decisions have been more difficult for us to overcome. And that then just reinforces the whole pattern.

Ben Williams was one of the worst referees with the Nix and he was one of the most experienced. i always thought Strebre Wotsisname was very competent. Beyond that most have been poor. watching Premier League refs crystallises the gaping competence chasm between them and this bunch of whistle happy clowns.

You see it in the big European leagues and Champions League too - borderline decisions favour the bigger teams. I think it seems worse at our level because the refs are worse so the margin for "borderline" is much bigger.

VAR just adds another level at which that phenomenon can happen, but that's a failing of application. VAR is meant to be there to correct obvious errors. If a call needs slo mo and multiple angles to decide if it's a foulor not then clearly the original decision wasn't an obvious error. The threshold for "obvious" needs to be lower - blatant missed handballs for instance. A tackle like Lowry's not being red carded isn't an obvious error by any measure

pretty sure the FFA in its current form is not short on cash.

Who's the man that reffed us against Brisbane? Thought he was a shining light in the organisation

Having dismissed the Application, the MRP determined that Lowry committed the offence of “Serious foul play (e.g. when challenging for the ball).”

The MRP confirmed that Lowry will serve a suspension of one (1) match, being the minimum sanction for the offence. 

how the fudge do they come to that decision when the boss has come out and said it was wrong?

Incompetence or corruption? Or is it yet another case of our referees never make a mistake and we will always back them to show unity??

combination of all 3

The Conspiracy theory is suddenly looking more real

Don't let the Nix upset the apple cart ;)

They may also fine Rudan for being frankly honest. Wouldn't that be the icing on the cake for those sad guys across the ditch

That ref actually looks like a YF faithful from Aisle 22 Row B and is a Forest fan.

I don't think you need a conspiracy theory if sheer incompetence can explain it

Worth pointing out Chris Kerr on Twitter last night.

https://twitter.com/DrQuack32/status/1069463516678...

"I’ve been fortunately enough to see some ‘other’ footage from last nights red card. It’s not as shocking a decision as first glanced and can support a red card on the challenge."

Worth a read of the entire thread, shows point of contact for a front on angle.

Oh go on.

In terms of what happens on the ref audio : https://twitter.com/DrQuack32/status/1069650476998...

" AR said ‘foul foul foul’, ref gave FK and then said ‘I didn’t see it’ Had he seen it, what conclusion would he have drawn? Well he saw the review and drew his own conclusion. VAR only said ‘you need to review this, if you have not seen it’ no recommendation given."

yeah frame 2 another good piece of the challenge, and how it can end up being Red. It's not a great tackle, and at least reckless. ( Which is my initial reaction)

One of Rudans claims is that no one appeals. You can see in the wide shot that players ahead of the challenge do throw their arms in the air.

Oops accidental this. The laws don't mention intent, it's not a consideration.

Independent from the Boss?

AR -FOUL FOUL FOUL  REF- FK DID NOT SEE IT  _Good thing TUI support rugby or all thier sign boards in Wgtn would insantanly

show this and YEAH RIGHT

AR saw it called it but allowed play to go on - Yer Right Mate  Could it have been the VAR calling foul foul foul?

PS: Did Ref approach AR to get his view no. He listen to the VAR (Still call it a VAR re-reffing game)

Ref didn't see it? he's looking straight at Lowry. Reckless tackle at best, yellow! He goes for the ball, wins the ball and collects the player afterward. The ref awards the foul/free kick. Why the VAR needed to intervene is beyond me. Awarding the free kick is fair, there is no clear and obvious error!

Looking at that shot, I reckon ref can't directly see contact due to the standing phoenix player (Kopa)

Yep, Kopa's directly in line with the contact so the ref couldn't see the nature of it. 

The stills look bad, but don't think you can rely on them to make a decision here, as the key component for a red card is excessive force, and you can't gauge that from a still or a slow mo. It's a definite yellow for me.

On reflection, Lowry really put his fate into VAR hands by not exercising enough control of his body movement. I don't think he could have avoided making contact with the Perth player given the greasiness of the surface and his own momentum, but he could have bent his knees before making contact rather than continuing to lead with the studs, and it's probably a simple careless and VAR doesn't intervene at all.

I wonder if his own sight of the Perth player is blocked by Dura(?).