Refereeing appointments for round 9
Newcastle Jets v Queensland Roar
Referee: Mark Shield
Assistant Referees: Rodney Allen & Murray Wilson
Fourth Official: James Lewis
Sydney FC v Adelaide United
Referee: Matthew Breeze
Assistant Referees: Ben Wilson & Gavin Martin
Fourth Official: Strebe Delovski
Wellington Phoenix v Central Coast Mariners
Referee: Peter Green
Assistant Referees: Paul Dunham & Nick Waldron
Fourth Official: Peter O’Leary
Melbourne Victory v Perth Glory
Referee: Simon Przydacz
Assistant Referees: Hakan Anaz & Luke Brennan
Fourth Official: Kevin Docherty
A few observations;
- It’s the first time I can remember the FFA releasing the names of the officials in their round preview.
- Ben Williams and Peter O’Leary, who stood over the controversial Sunday games last week, don’t get a game this week, although Kiwi O’Leary is the fourth official when the ‘Nix host the front-runners.
- It’s the fifth time this year both Mark Shield and Matthew Breeze are on the panel. After poor games in round 7, both stood over open and free-flowing thrillers on Friday night.
- The Telstra Dome clash on Sunday will be New South Welshmen Simon Przydacz’s first game since the round two clash between the Jets and Queensland, when he send off Stuart McLaren for two yellow card offences. The second yellow, of course, resulted in a free kick on the edge of the box, expertly converted by Joel Griffiths.
posted by The Round Ball Analyst at 18.10.07
3 Comments:
Thanks for this Tony. I certainly understand your reticence in reviewing the performances of refs, and especially after reading Collina's book I too have a great sympathy for their position and think a lot of the bile they get is undeserved.
However, as with players and coaches, it is clear that there is a great deal of terrain between the quality of novice and very good refs. Given the sometimes massive impact a ref can have not only on the result but on the very style of play, it seems fair to at least ask the general question, "How can we make sure the quality of refereeing in Australia is high quality and improving?"
Certainly fully professionalising the role would help. John suggested the idea of marquee refs a while ago. What about some sort of exchange deal where Ozzie refs go to ref in Asia or Europe for a couple of months?
Collina goes into great detail about the refs association in Italy, and how they constantly peer-review one another's performances and face panels where they are asked to critique their own performances. Do we have these processes, or anything equivalent, here?
If we can't critique the quality of refereeing as a whole, then it's sometimes hard to justify being so rigorously tough on the players and coaches for the quality of the League as a whole. They play an enormous role, whether we're noticing them or not.
Just tonight Hamish, on total football, ben buckley delved quite a bit in the refereeing situation.
andy harper started by asking him why there was a fair deal of secrecy about refereeing appointments and non-appointments to which Buckley said that they (FFA) would be only too willing to answer questions if they were posed.
It's a fair response, cause I dont think the media and analysts around the game have really focussed too much on the refereeing for the past couple of years. In other words, the heat hasn't been on.
But in the past few weeks the attention has been there due to some decisions.
I'm not sure about AFL, but I know in league the referees are named in the Big League program on Weds, so it was interesting to see the FFA go that way earlier today.
Re the issue of self assessment, I'm not sure that happens here, but BB confirmed that they go over their performances with ref boss Richard lorenc, himself a fromer NSL and FIFA ref. Buckley said that Lorenc confirmed Williams had erred in Steven Old goal - he should have taken the ball back to halfway, kicked off, and then blown full-time, not blown full time after the ball was kicked in the goal.
Wouldnt be surprised if that and the fact he didnt send Laybutt off contributed to his non selection for rd9, although this wasnt dicsussed on TF.
Re the issue of full time professionalism, Mike Cockerill and BB spoke about a lack of finances to make this happen. BB mentioned that the only league in Asia that has professional referees is japan, and we were some way off.
I guess, like many things here, it comes down to finances, so we have to wait. The idea of guest referees from Asia isnt the worst, but I'm not sure there's too many precdents around the world and what FIFA thinks.
Anyway, it's probably good for the standard of refereeing here that there's a bit of attention on their performances (it happens all over the world), but I agree with FFA that they shouldnt be berated....ask anyone who's done it, it's a really tough gig, and we need to be encouraging the development of whistleblowers, not giving them reasons not to take it up.
I agree Tony the BB interview was very interesting. I like him now I have seen him. He looked uncomfortable at first but he warmed up fast.
Unfortunately he also said that 10 teams are very unlikely for next year. Sound like the rich clubs - Adelaide, Melbourne, CCM - are holding their ground - whereas the other clubs need new teams to spark more fans into the game. Ground capacity utilisation is critical.
Total Football is out-gunning the world game.
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