Reffin' hell

Quarter 1 complete and we are unbeaten. Happy days, but it could have been so much better. Having taken the lead against Forfar we seemed to be, not quite cruising, but certainly drifting towards another 3 points. Forfar had enough possession but like most teams we have played against they struggled to create too many clear cut chances, and when they did, there was usually a defender in the way, literally, to prevent an equalizing goal. Until the whistler got in the way that is. To be honest, I normally can’t get too worked up about what is perceived as poor officiating. Mainly because I’m not sure I could do any better, and if there were no ref’s then we wouldn’t have a game at all. And given that we are at the arse end of Scottish Football, we can’t really expect to have the Collina’s, or Dougal’s, of the refereeing fraternity officiating at our matches. The players aren’t the best so why should they expect the top refs? So it is really a case of like it or lump it. The guy on Saturday seemed particularly “Green behind the ears” – the amount of flak from McLeish, Mathie and Brady that he seemed prepared to accept was cringeworthy – but the fact is that hopefully, anyway, the guy will learn from it. However, despite this relatively pragmatic view, on Saturday Mr Watters managed to make my blood boil. Personally, while I might get worked up about decisions for and against, my general view is that over the course of the season the (bad) decisions will even themselves out. The match against Forfar was an illustration in point. Both teams had what appeared to be stonewall penalty decisions turned down (although the Forfar incident was the direct result of a crude challenge on Jordan Smith) Nevertheless, you take the rough with the smooth. Even the so called foul that lead to the equalizer was “soft”, but you could understand (maybe) why the ref gave it. But for me, what was unforgiveable was the amount of time added on at the end. Surely this was pure incompetence. In a match without incident or major delay why on earth did the ref add so much time? No matter how inexperienced the official is, surely he can tell the time? I came away from the match feeling as though we had lost, where in fact we had maintained our lead at the top and our unbeaten record.