THE Scottish refereeing landscape moved into a major new era last night with the introduction of Willie Collum’s brand new VAR YouTube show.
But it’s fair to say fans have been left perplexed by one clip in particular – and NOT because of the decision made by the officials.
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New refereeing chief Collum unveiled The VAR Review last night.
The monthly show, hosted by Clyde Superscoreboard’s Gordon Duncan, sees Collum pore over the big VAR talking points from the previous month of action.
It also provides never before seen access to referees during the match, with the audio both from the on-field ref and VAR officials played on the show.
And it’s one piece of that audio that has captured fans’ attention.
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Collum looked at an incident from Rangers’ 6-0 thrashing of Ross County back on 24 August.
It ultimately saw Cyriel Dessers score the Light Blues’ third of the game.
However, the clip begins some 50 seconds before the Gers No9 actually puts the ball in the net.
A few seconds into the clip, a Rangers attack breaks down with County getting the ball out of their box.
Connor Randall breaks away down the park with Gers midfielder Tom Lawrence bursting a gut to keep up with him.
And this is the bit of audio that’s caught fans’ attention.
As Lawrence closes in on Randall, referee Ross Hardie can be heard shouting: “Don’t tackle there Tom! Don’t tackle there Tom!”
The shout has left fans divided, with many accusing the whistler of ‘coaching’ Lawrence.
One bemused fan asked: “Why is the referee telling a player to not tackle an opponent in the middle of a game?”
A second added: “He’s shouting like it’s his coach. WTF?”
A third posted: “Is this common for referees to do? Seems really weird.”
Another commented: “A referee telling a player not to tackle? Something not right going on here.”
A fifth added: “Can someone explain to me why the referee is shouting to Tom Lawrence not to tackle during a game?”
Another comment read: “Why would a ref tell a player what to do….bizarre!”
While another fan said: “Clip here. No idea why the referee is saying this to Tom Lawrence. It’s not his job.”
Another commented: “The ref is actually trying to coach the Rangers player. Tells him not to tackle, presumably because it will be a foul, but when he does tackle and fouls, blatantly, he says he got the ball.”
However, amid all of those comments were plenty of comments SUPPORTING the referee’s shout.
Many alluded to the referee’s duty of care to players as a reason why he chose those words.
One fan said: “Common practice for refs and linesman to say this kind of thing to players.”
A second added: “Nothing unusual about ref shouting at player in this situation. Happens at all levels of the game. Head along to amateur games and you’ll hear it clearly.”
Another posted: “Nothing wrong with this, ref has a duty of care to an extent and if he can avoid the country player receiving a poor tackle from the rear he will indicate that to the incoming Tom Lawrence.”
A further comment said: “The only thing this clip has revealed on here is just how many idiots there are on this app. Anyone who has played the game at literally any level knows a ref shouts at players to not make a challenge that could see them booked/sent off.”
And another, referring to the negative comments, said: “We’ll never get refs mic’d up because of daft fans like this.”
Moments after the referee’s pleas to Lawrence, the Rangers midfielder DOES put in a challenge.
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Coming in from behind, the midfielder brings down Randall.
However, ref Hardie reckons Lawrence has played the ball and can be heard adamantly telling the players: “He’s played the ball, he’s played the ball, he’s played the ball. He’s got all of the ball. He’s played the ball”
Rangers then knock the ball around with the VAR official heard resetting the attacking phase of play on a couple of occasions.
Eventually, around 30 seconds after the tackle, the ball is worked into the box and Dessers nets Rangers’ third goal of the game.
The referee can again be heard telling a protesting County player: “He’s played the ball through you. A huge touch on the ball.”
Replays, however, clearly show that Lawrence got absolutely nothing on the ball and fouled Randall.
Collum agreed that the referee made a mistake in not awarding a free-kick but also said the VAR was RIGHT not to intervene to try and disallow the goal.
And that was all down to the time that had passed, the nature of the action in between the tackle and the goal and the resetting of the APP.
Collum explained: “This is a really important clip, key messages in this clip. Firstly, it’s a clear foul for me that the referee has missed on field. It’s a reckless tackle by the Rangers player.
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“You’ll hear the referee saying that the ball’s been won – the ball has not been won. We’ve coached the referee about the right angle, finding the right position because something happens at a split second it can be easy to think that the ball has been touched but for us in this case, you can clearly see on TV review the ball’s not been touched.
“If that player then takes possession of the ball, immediately goes up field, there’s maybe one or two passes then a goal is scored then we’d consider this the attacking phase of play.
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“However, when you look at this clip, there are a lot of passes made. Some coming back the way, we would encourage the VAR – the VAR did it in this game – to reset the APP and the reason we’re asking for the APP to be reset, VAR is not there to re-referee the match.
“So for us, the tackle is missed. It should have been a foul but this does not constitute the APP.”
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