Red card decision ‘was wrong’
game of football and having to make big decisions like that.’’
The VAR system came in for a lot of criticism in the opening rounds of the season, which led to the FFA instructing its referees to be stricter around its implementation for only clear and obvious errors.
But that move has appeared short-lived in Rudan’s eyes, based on Sunday night’s evidence.
Dome said the club was also unhappy a first-half penalty decision was not reviewed, despite replays appearing to show Louis Fenton being dragged down in the box.
‘‘There are three aspects to it. ‘‘No 1, the referees need to be more skilled up to handle these sorts of things – there are only three professional refs in the league and five matches each round.
‘‘No 2, the VAR was not introduced for incidents like that. That was never the intent to have tackles like that reviewed. That’s ridiculous, you’d have to relitigate every tackle in the game.
‘‘No 3, the smaller clubs, Wellington, Central Coast, Newcastle and to a certain extent Adelaide, tend to get the more inexperienced refs . . . so we’re used as a training ground for the referees, which is just not acceptable.’’
After the match, Rudan said injured goalkeeper Filip Kurto, who suffered a head injury in the first half and was stretchered off, was doing ‘‘OK’’, but would need to be monitored throughout the week.