SMFC v HMFC

[Rod1877]

40 minutes ago, Captain_Sensible said:

Fix it at the point Joe Shaughnessy touches the ball as you would offside?
 

Yup, as I suggested in my post.  If it wasn't over the line at that point, it wasn't over at any point.

Anyway, I don't believe that it can be definitive in that situation any more than it can be for offside, regardless of the supposed compensating thickness of the red and blue lines.

[IrishBhoy]

1 minute ago, Black_and_White_Stripes said:

We had THREE goals disallowed, for heaven's sake:

- One for 'high' foot that made NO contact with any of your players.

- One for a 'soft' foul where your man went down with barely a touch.

- One for an offside, which all the stills indicate wasn't in fact offside.

 

It's probably gross incompetence on the part of officials, but I cannot blame folk who might consider it is something more than that. 

It’s definitely not any sort of conspiracy against St Mirren, it’s incompetence. Every club is going to need to deal with horrific decisions at some point this season, although St Mirren seem to have had a few in quick succession. If a qualified referee has had the advantage of replaying the Mandron ‘foul’ and came to the conclusion that the Hearts player was impeded then what hope do you have? I do think if Walsh had awarded the goal and then asked VAR to review it the goal would have stood. But instead he gives the foul then asks VAR if he’s made a clear and obvious error, and the bar is higher to overturn a decision than it is to confirm the original decision. I was absolutely astounded that Walsh wasn’t called to the screen, they had the chance to use VAR correctly and probably get a bit of praise from the fans and media, but instead compounded the error with another error. 

[Coventry Saint]

The fact is, based on the footage we have available, the ball was over the line by a bigger margin than Grieve was offside, yet here were are and they're both chalked off.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Coventry Saint

[pozbaird]

All I can say is thank fcuk we won the game. Even if we all suddenly accept that Greive was offside, either by a baw’ hair, or a country mile…. WTF was the Mandron goal chalked off for, and why the fcuk didn’t the marvellous VAR chaps have a look at it?

2-0 Saints. Easy the Mirren, etc.

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

55 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

Totally agree with you.  I watched last week's Hearts v Aberdeen match with the Hearts commentary and the two guys were probably the fairest and best I've heard on a club site.

Not sure if I’ve ever listened to the Hearts TV commentary. 
The St. Mirren TV guys are perfectly impartial. They are just absolutely shite commentators. They waffle on about all sorts of bollocks. 

[Doonhame Buddie]

1 hour ago, Empty It said:

St Mirren sounding a bit Celticy with all this VAR conspiracy pish.

Hold on. Nobody is claiming a conspiracy or saying “they’re out to get us”, but many people are saying VAR is being poorly applied and/or there is an embarrassing level of incompetence hanging over Scottish football. 

As someone else said previously it is right these issues are called out now when we are winning rather than come across as bad losers when the same VAR issues are played out again in a game we lose.  (Statistically we have to lose some time in the next few seasons). 

[Black_and_White_Stripes]

10 minutes ago, IrishBhoy said:

It’s definitely not any sort of conspiracy against St Mirren, it’s incompetence. Every club is going to need to deal with horrific decisions at some point this season, although St Mirren seem to have had a few in quick succession. If a qualified referee has had the advantage of replaying the Mandron ‘foul’ and came to the conclusion that the Hearts player was impeded then what hope do you have? I do think if Walsh had awarded the goal and then asked VAR to review it the goal would have stood. But instead he gives the foul then asks VAR if he’s made a clear and obvious error, and the bar is higher to overturn a decision than it is to confirm the original decision. I was absolutely astounded that Walsh wasn’t called to the screen, they had the chance to use VAR correctly and probably get a bit of praise from the fans and media, but instead compounded the error with another error. 

I agree that it's most likely incompetence. I won't lie, though, as unfashionable and paranoid as it may seem, a small part of me believes the SFA would rather have the bigger clubs like Hearts qualifying for the European spots and certainly avoiding relegation. There's also the potential for some form of unconscious bias.  

12 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

No. It’s always a dumb thing to suggest. 

To suggest that there's no form of bias or prejudice of any sort by Scottish officials, whether conscious or unconscious is simply ridiculous, in my humble opinion. 

[Empty It]

12 minutes ago, Doonhame Buddie said:

Hold on. Nobody is claiming a conspiracy or saying “they’re out to get us”, but many people are saying VAR is being poorly applied and/or there is an embarrassing level of incompetence hanging over Scottish football. 

As someone else said previously it is right these issues are called out now when we are winning rather than come across as bad losers when the same VAR issues are played out again in a game we lose.  (Statistically we have to lose some time in the next few seasons). 

 

On 23/09/2023 at 23:13, GAD said:

I'm also loving the fact all these wins have genuinely been against all the odds. There hasn't been a single game so far where "honest mistakes" from the anti St Mirren officials haven't gone against us, yet we prevail. 

Fwiw I think VAR is hopelessly terrible but when the main focus after winning a game is crying about officials its pretty sad.

[Road Dogg]

25 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Not sure if I’ve ever listened to the Hearts TV commentary. 
The St. Mirren TV guys are perfectly impartial. They are just absolutely shite commentators. They waffle on about all sorts of bollocks. 

Quite insulting to call them impartial, actually. 

 

[IrishBhoy]

Just now, Empty It said:

 

Fwiw I think VAR is hopelessly terrible but when the main focus after winning a game is crying about officials its pretty sad.

I don’t think poor decisions should be forgotten about just because the team that suffered them went on to win. The officials have been given the technology to get a second look at contentious decisions and it seems like they are making more mistakes now than when we didn’t have VAR. As I said earlier if Walsh had been called over to the screen to review the Mandron goal, rewatched it 3 or 4 times and had the ability to admit that he got it wrong on the first viewing and a goal should be awarded, there would have been nothing but praise for him with people saying things like ‘this is exactly why VAR was brought in’ etc. Instead we are left bewildered that even with the benefit of replays, and a screen at the side of the pitch to review these exact kind of incidents, they still made an arse of it. It’s not a hard decision, there was no foul and I think even the majority of Hearts fans would admit that. But a qualified referee has made an error on the pitch and another qualified referee watching a replay of it, still couldn’t get it right. That should be called out. 

[GAD]

10 minutes ago, Empty It said:

 

Fwiw I think VAR is hopelessly terrible but when the main focus after winning a game is crying about officials its pretty sad.

I mean, I genuinely would have thought my post there was about as obvious a piss take as it's possible to get, but I suppose tone can be difficult in the written word.

[Billy Jean King]

20 hours ago, The Master said:

No VAR system uses angles on both sides for offside. At most, they will use a total of five cameras synchronised in Hawkeye - the main cameras, 2 18-yard line cameras, and 2 goal-line cameras (so effectively 3 cameras per end). They can use any camera to determine when the ball was kicked, but only the Hawkeye cameras can be used for drawing the lines. 

We don’t have the goal line cameras in Scotland. 

So to paraphrase yes we don't have the top notch version of VAR, cheers for the confirmation. 

[Billy Jean King]

1 hour ago, IrishBhoy said:

I don’t think poor decisions should be forgotten about just because the team that suffered them went on to win. The officials have been given the technology to get a second look at contentious decisions and it seems like they are making more mistakes now than when we didn’t have VAR. As I said earlier if Walsh had been called over to the screen to review the Mandron goal, rewatched it 3 or 4 times and had the ability to admit that he got it wrong on the first viewing and a goal should be awarded, there would have been nothing but praise for him with people saying things like ‘this is exactly why VAR was brought in’ etc. Instead we are left bewildered that even with the benefit of replays, and a screen at the side of the pitch to review these exact kind of incidents, they still made an arse of it. It’s not a hard decision, there was no foul and I think even the majority of Hearts fans would admit that. But a qualified referee has made an error on the pitch and another qualified referee watching a replay of it, still couldn’t get it right. That should be called out. 

This x 100. If you moan after going down to a dodgy VAR decision it's going to be roundly dismissed as sour grapes. Fans are totally correct in calling out it's inadequacies when they win despite the VAR decisions. It's blatantly not being used in the correct way in this country when these exact same discussions emerge week after week be that from supporters of teams who have won, lost or drew.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Billy Jean King

[Dirty Sanchez]

4 hours ago, Div said:

I'd really like the SFA to pick a few incidents in games and release the audio of the conversation between the referee and the VAR team, in the same way that they have started doing in England.

It would be educational for supporters to see and hear how decisions are arrived at, and also give a level of transparency that should at least breed a little bit of trust in the system.

I don't think they will, but they absolutely should!

Long before VAR I can recall people wanting refs to explain their decisions. That was always passive aggressive nonsense to me because it was in a scenario where a ref would get one look at an incident, in real time, and often had to go with his best guess, which was inevitably sometimes wrong.

Having technology in place changes that narrative though. If all we hear about the technology is correct, then there shouldn't be any issue with them providing explanations. Why would there be? It's more likely to help the process improve than be a burden.

One thing I would hope is that they are at least having a word with themselves internally when there's been a wrong or unnecessary intervention. Don't expect them to self flagellate in public, but simlarly hope they're not just doubling down instead. That's no use to anyone.

 

 

[elvis]

Doubling down I could easily believe. 

[Coventry Saint]

1 hour ago, Dirty Sanchez said:

Long before VAR I can recall people wanting refs to explain their decisions. That was always passive aggressive nonsense to me because it was in a scenario where a ref would get one look at an incident, in real time, and often had to go with his best guess, which was inevitably sometimes wrong.

Having technology in place changes that narrative though. If all we hear about the technology is correct, then there shouldn't be any issue with them providing explanations. Why would there be? It's more likely to help the process improve than be a burden.

One thing I would hope is that they are at least having a word with themselves internally when there's been a wrong or unnecessary intervention. Don't expect them to self flagellate in public, but simlarly hope they're not just doubling down instead. That's no use to anyone.

 

 

100% Walsh has fucked up his handling of the Mandron goal. He almost did so well: let play continue, then blew after ball went in. 

In his head there, he thinks VAR will correct his mistake. But he needs to award the goal for that to happen. If he does that, there's a clear review of the incident and if they decide there's a foul, then fair enough. Instead, he says it was a free kick and play continues, so VAR doesn't get involved.

He's hugely mishandled it. I really hope the club is (quietly, without issuing a statement) kicking off about this.

[Dons_1988]

4 hours ago, Black_and_White_Stripes said:  

To suggest that there's no form of bias or prejudice of any sort by Scottish officials, whether conscious or unconscious is simply ridiculous, in my humble opinion. 

Well even if that blanket statement is true (which I could never disprove), the probability that multiple SFA officials have conscious or unconscious bias against st mirren to the point of making multiple bad decisions in run of the mill league games is so low that it is still a very daft thing to suggest. 

[IrishBhoy]

2 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

100% Walsh has fucked up his handling of the Mandron goal. He almost did so well: let play continue, then blew after ball went in. 

In his head there, he thinks VAR will correct his mistake. But he needs to award the goal for that to happen. If he does that, there's a clear review of the incident and if they decide there's a foul, then fair enough. Instead, he says it was a free kick and play continues, so VAR doesn't get involved.

He's hugely mishandled it. I really hope the club is (quietly, without issuing a statement) kicking off about this.

St. Mirren should definitely be having a word with the SFA but no matter how we go about it nothing is going to change. We could send a VERY strongly worded letter to the suits at Hampden, but next Saturday it’s still the same balloons like Alan Muir, David Munro and Don Robertson taking charge of the games, ably assisted in the VAR command centre by even worse referees like Andrew Dallas, Steven McLean and Euan Anderson. Maybe recency bias is playing its part here but I can’t remember a time where the pool of officials has ever been as bad as it is right now. Some of these Premiership referees would be out their depth in the Paisley & District league. 

[Black_and_White_Stripes]

2 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Well even if that blanket statement is true (which I could never disprove), the probability that multiple SFA officials have conscious or unconscious bias against st mirren to the point of making multiple bad decisions in run of the mill league games is so low that it is still a very daft thing to suggest. 

I'm referring to ONE game, in which we had three goals controversially disallowed. 

[IrishBhoy]

10 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

100% Walsh has fucked up his handling of the Mandron goal. He almost did so well: let play continue, then blew after ball went in. 

In his head there, he thinks VAR will correct his mistake. But he needs to award the goal for that to happen. If he does that, there's a clear review of the incident and if they decide there's a foul, then fair enough. Instead, he says it was a free kick and play continues, so VAR doesn't get involved.

He's hugely mishandled it. I really hope the club is (quietly, without issuing a statement) kicking off about this.

Exactly what I was trying to say earlier. If Walsh had let that move continue, blow for the foul then after being instructed to rewatch it on the monitor, have the maturity to admit his initial mistake and award the goal, there would have been pundits falling over themselves saying how well he managed that situation, and we probably wouldn’t be having this debate right now. Instead it’s just another bit of evidence we can add to the  mountains of prior evidence that these officials are completely incompetent at their job.