IT’S ALL KICKING OFF AGAIN
Halliday: High kick put Ry in danger and Irishman deserved red
KILMARNOCK 0 RANGERS 0
Andy Halliday says Kilmarnock midfielder Alan Power should have been sent off for booting Rangers pal Ryan Jack in the head. And Ibrox gaffer Steven Gerrard is now waiting to see if he’s cited by the SFA. In a scrappy Scottish Cup tie at Rugby Park
Rangers and their fans turned the knob on their self-righteous indignation all the way up to 11 on Friday when Alfredo Morelos and Allan McGregor were both done.
In fairness to them, trying to explain the randomness of the SFA’s disciplinary process is getting harder by the week.
It’s virtually the only thing keeping tin-foil hat makers and our finest purveyors of whataboutery i n business. But usi n g it s inconsistency as an excuse to mask your players’ stupidity is a complete cop-out. So let’s deal with this in two parts – first the players, then the process. Morelos? If you search long enough and hard enough for just the right camera angle at exactly the right split second, and start quoting the rules about excessive force, then squint right, stand on one leg and put your hands over your eyes, there’s probably a way to make it look like he didn’t deliberately stud Scott McKenna in the nuts. But for everyone else not making a fool of themselves trying that? He deliberately studded McKenna in the nuts. Not particularly heavily, sure, but any guy with a pair will tell you it doesn’t have to be. He dangled the boot in there just long enough - it’s a red card all night long. Anyone doubting it, just take a look at the player’s surreptitious glances for the ref as he’s rolling around on the deck, looking to see if he’s getting away with it. Guilty as a kid caught watching the 10-minute freeview on his bedroom telly at midnight. His lack of discipline is a problem for Rangers. All thi s stuf f about ‘ never change’ and ‘you lose a part of him as a player if you take away his aggression’ i s garbage. Yo u ’ r e no t asking him to cut off his right leg. You’re asking him to learn some control. It’s a coachable skill. Or it should be. He’s a terrific striker, tenacious, unplayable at times. His 23 goals this season are evidence of some serious quality. But at what price? Steven Gerrard was left without a striker worth the name for the League Cup semi loss to Aberdeen because of his truculence in the previous round.
You can be aggressive, a handful for centre-halves, play right on the edge, and still resist the temptation to kick players after the ball’s gone, grab their privates, stamp on them.
It was an absolute miracle he escaped unscathed from the last Old Firm game.
There have been some remarkable accusations of a witchhunt against him, claims even of racism, that a white Scottish player wouldn’t get the ‘treatment’ he has. It’s nonsense.
He’s not being picked on. He’s being highlighted because he’s a highprofile player who has control issues. It’s nothing to do with his nationality or the colour of his skin.
As for McGregor? Any keeper from toddler up will have been told at some point about the need to protect yourself. Personally? Learned the lesson the hard way with studs across the nose in Primary 7 in an identical situation to the one at Aberdeen the other night.
But straight-legging Lewis Ferguson with his studs up was mi les beyond ‘protection’. It was needless, delivered with intent, and a penalty and a red, clear as day.
Which brings us neatly to the process which saw him banned.
A process that tells us you can’t re-referee games over incidents seen and dealt with by the match ref. Example: John Beaton in the Old Firm game, still blowing in the wind the SFA hung him out to dry in.
Yet also a process which has done exactly what they say they won’t do on at least three different occasions now. And it’s hard to see which part of the incident Bobby Madden didn’t see clearly from his completely unobstructed view. Again,g that’s not to say the decision arrived at by the compliance officer and panel wasn’t the right one. But it’s the ‘make it up on the hoof’ aspect to what gets dealt with and what doesn’t that’s earning the system the caning it’s getting. It needs overhauled in a hurry . Just in case anyone has made it this far and is frothing at the lack of objectivity in this column, let’s make the rest of it a quick-fire round.
Scott McKenna? Spot-on with the red. Minimal contact to the face or not, his intent was enough.
Jozo Simunovic? A shocker of a challenge to these eyes, by a player trying to escape justice with a ‘who, me?’ display of sympathy. Should have been ‘complianced’.
Darnell Johnston? A yellow which probably should have been red, but done by the hypocrisy of a system which isn’t supposed to re-referee.
And Scott Brown? Let off by what appears to be the ‘Scott Brown’ clause, which allows the Celtic captain the free burial of one rival per game without repercussion.
It was a terrible tackle – deserving of the yellow he got, maybe a red.
But if we star t to review every one of those, we’d never get games played.
And therein lies the problem. If you have a set-up which allows you to retrospectively look at and administer discipline, you’re always going to spark a riot when you draw the line above or below the challenge someone else thinks is the one that needed justice served.
Which brings us back to the initial point. We’ve said it often enough, but the quality of the refs needs improved beyond measure and the disciplinary system needs a total rebuild.
None of which excuses managers or coaches who refuse to accept that their players are ever at fault, or that they have
a responsibilitypy to sort it.
He was as guilty as kid caught watching 10-minute freeview on his telly