Refs are so bad we must have VAR for showpiece games
OVER the course of this weekend’s Scottish Cup semifinals, there can be no doubt that Hibs and St Johnstone were worthy winners in the end and fully deserve their place in the final.
They were clinical and ruthless in the way they went about things, two qualities which their opponents Dundee United and St Mirren failed to display.
But that only tells part of the story. Looking at how both games panned out, fans of United and St Mirren will both feel a definite sense of grievance — and rightly so.
Their teams were on the receiving end of a couple of dreadful refereeing decisions, both of which had a direct impact on the outcome of each semi-final.
Firstly, referee Bobby Madden and his team of officials failed to spot a clear offside as Christian Doidge went through on goal to put Hibs 2-0 up against United on Saturday.
In all honesty, it wasn’t even close. Doidge was a clear yard ahead of the last defender, yet the officials somehow failed to see it.
The assistant referee was actually in the perfect position, looking straight across the line. Somehow he still managed to get it wrong.
Yesterday, it was Willie Collum who blundered as he failed to award St Mirren what should have been a stonewall penalty in the first half with the game finely poised at 0-0.
St Mirren’s Kristian Dennis fired a shot towards goal and the ball clearly struck the arm of St Johnstone defender Jamie McCart inside the penalty area.
For me, whether or not McCart meant it is irrelevant. Intent should not be part of the equation. The ball was travelling towards goal and was clearly stopped by McCart’s hand.
If that wasn’t enough, McCart actually caught Dennis on the top of the boot with the way he challenged for the ball. Collum could easily have given a penalty for either incident.
But he failed to do so — and it once again raises questions over whether we should be looking to introduce VAR into Scottish football.
Listen, I’ve been there and have first-hand experience of how painful these mistakes by officials can be. I know how it feels to be on the wrong end of the abysmal decisions we see so often in big games.
I look back at my own career and the infamous Scottish Cup semi-final against Inverness in 2015 when we were chasing a Treble at Celtic.
I was stood inside the six-yard box waiting for what should have been a tap-in as Leigh Griffiths headed the ball back across to me, only for Josh Meekings to intervene with a blatant handball.
Every single player on the pitch could see it was a handball. It was clear as day. Some of the Inverness players were trying to wind us up afterwards. Even they couldn’t believe it wasn’t given.
They knew it was a howler from referee Steven McLean.
As they say, the rest is history. Inverness won 3-2 in extra-time and went on to beat Falkirk in the final to lift the cup.
I don’t buy the argument about how these things will ‘even themselves out’ over the course of a season. Cup semi-finals and finals are one-off occasions. The rest of the season is irrelevant.
You need the big decisions to go your way. You need the officials to do their job properly.
But, just like six years ago, teams are still at the mercy of a referee’s incompetence on the day.
It’s not good enough. Goals change games. If St Mirren were awarded a penalty yesterday, which they clearly should have been, then they go 1-0 up and who knows how it pans out from there.
I’ve generally been quite sceptical about VAR. When you see the chaos it often causes in the English Premier League, I’m actually quite glad we don’t have it in Scottish football.
When you start spending five minutes drawing lines on a TV screen to determine whether a player’s toenail is offside, that’s when it becomes a nonsense.
But the problem there centres around how the technology is implemented. The problem does not necessarily lie with VAR itself.
If you use it sensibly and only apply it in instances where there has been a clear-and-obvious error, then surely we can all see the benefit? Scottish referees have proven over many years that they simply can’t be trusted to get the big decisions correct. They are simply not up to scratch. Unlike their colleagues in England, they are not full-time. They need all the help they can get — and VAR has to become a serious option at some point.
I understand the expense involved and how some clubs simply may not be able to afford it. But what about the SFA?
Surely they have the finance available to introduce it at Hampden for major cup finals and semi-finals?
That would at least be a start — and it would stop the sort of embarrassing decisions which we saw go against Dundee United and St Mirren over the weekend.
VAR doesn’t need to be a dirty word. If you implement it correctly, it can be hugely beneficial. The longer we go without, its absence will continue to make a mockery of Scottish football’s showpiece occasions.
But take nothing away from Callum Davidson and St Johnstone. Prior to this season, the Perth club had won one single major honour in their 137-year history.
Davidson now stands on the brink of trebling that total in one season — and in his first year in the job.
If he can add the Scottish Cup to the League Cup triumph, then it would be impossible to overlook him as Manager of the Year.