Accies boss in a rage as rules chaos reigns
You know you have crossed the rubicon when managers openly admit they no longer understand the rules and claim match officials, when queried on decisions, admitted they are none too sure either.
Exasperated Hamilton boss Brian Rice insisted that is where we currently find ourselves.
The first Lanarkshire derby of the new season should have been a feisty, keenly-contested affair. Instead, the final 70 minutes were an anti-climax as a result of the ridiculous new interpretation of the handball rule, which referees are now under orders to enforce.
Whoever believed it would be a good idea to have a directive where goals can be disallowed for an inadvertent handball by an attacking player while a similar offence by a defender can go unpunished needs to take a good look at themselves.
Equally, a handball which unintentionally prevents a goal being scored through no fault of the defending player results in a penalty kick and a red card.
That was what happened at Hamilton on Saturday. Motherwell were already a goal to the good through Peter Hartley’s header from a Liam Polworth corner when a header from the latter struck 17-year-old centre-half Jamie Hamilton on the hand.
The teenager could not have got out of the way of the ball if his life had depended on it, but referee Andrew Dallas pointed to the spot and brandished the red card.
Liam Donnelly stepped up to score his seventh goal in as many games and, even though we were less than a quarter of the way through the contest, anyone who had backed an away win could start spending their winnings with confidence.
Rice said: ‘The ref calls it as he sees it and we get on with it, but I don’t understand the new rules.
‘The refs are confused by them as well. I was speaking to the assistant referee and the fourth official, asking them questions and they were saying: “It could be this” or “it could be that”. It’s becoming farcical at times as nobody knows the rules now.’
Dallas also awarded a spot-kick to the hosts when Hartley was penalised after unwittingly handling the ball. It was converted by Ross Cunningham but that was the only time Accies threatened.
When Chris Long opened his Premiership account with an angled drive at the end of a mazy run to put the match to bed just six minutes after the restart, it was all about damage limitation for Rice’s men.
‘It was really tough going down to ten men after only 20 minutes,’ admitted home captain Darian MacKinnon. ‘We also had a man sent off against Kilmarnock but at least we had a two-goal lead to hold on to in that one.
‘When you’re chasing the game, it’s much harder and, to be fair to Motherwell, they played it well. We just have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
‘Jamie said the ball hit him in the shoulder but I haven’t seen a replay. I’m told there wasn’t much he could have done about it because he was only three yards away. This new rule went against us today but, hopefully, it’ll go for us at some point this season.
‘The penalty was bad enough but the red card was a hammer blow. When you have a man sent off and you’re already two goals down, you’re in trouble.
‘This new rule, though... if you’re going to give a penalty then make it a yellow-card offence. It’s not as if he was diving like a goalkeeper to keep it out — the ball just hit him.’