When push comes to shove, MacKinnon feels our refs are doing just fine
FOR Scotland’s embattled referees, Darian MacKinnon fits the category of unlikely ally. The midfielder’s antics have spelt trouble for over-worked officials in Hamilton games for six seasons. However, as referee baiting turns into a national sport, don’t ask the 33-year-old Accies captain — who knows them better than most in the game — to join the baying mob and kick them at a low ebb.
MacKinnon’s record this season of seven yellow cards and one notice of complaint, leading to a two-match suspension, is fairly standard stuff for one of the most combative figures in the league.
Perhaps, then, talking with very personal experience — and lots of it — his views could be considered and an invite extended when a proposed New Year summit takes place at Hampden.
One of the issues on the debating table at the sixth floor is to be the implementation of VAR in Scotland. That, stresses MacKinnon, is a step too far.
So, too, is the blame and abuse culture cranked up by clubs and senior figures in the game targeting certain officials, several of whom MacKinnon has grown to respect more over the years.
Okay, he may not show it when he’s marauding around the middle of the park mis-timing tackles then forever confronting the consequences with opponents.
But part of his job is to be that destructive midfield influence, just as part of the referee’s role is to try to limit the damage any player with such an aggressive streak is allowed to wreak.
And within both those briefs lies the capacity for mistakes.
MacKinnon would like it to remain that way because, in his experience, the standard is not sinking as has been claimed.
His message to those unaccepting of human error is: ‘You just need to deal with it’.
He added: ‘I can understand why they want to introduce VAR, especially at the highest levels where there’s so much money involved.
‘Some of the decisions are bad but I just think they are getting highlighted more. As soon as someone says something about the referees in the media, everyone is on to them. I think they do a good job. They’re not going to get everyone decision right. And I quite like the controversy.
‘You see Rangers getting a goal that should have been given offside at Hearts. Then they didn’t get one at Dundee that they should have.
‘It’s just human error and players do the same. If you watch me on a Saturday, I’m pretty sure I’m giving the ball away plenty times.
‘If they came out and caned us for every decision we got wrong in the game we’d be in trouble.
‘Refs are just unfortunate in that they’ve got 22 people plus the managers going for them if they made a bad decision.
‘But we didn’t have these incidents people would have nothing to talk about. You want all that mad stuff, folk saying: “They’ve cost us the game” and all that debate.
‘Obviously you don’t want referees getting slaughtered every week. But these incidents are what make the game what it is.’
Before handing fourth official Andrew Dallas his Christmas card when heading out the tunnel for a warm-up at Ibrox, MacKinnon explains why he is fond of the majority of Scottish refs.
‘I like most of them,’ said MacKinnon. ‘They are all good guys. There are one or two you don’t particularly like because they don’t really speak to you like a professional.
‘It’s more like a school teacher and that puts your back up. But the majority are spot on. The ones that speak to you, those are the ones you like. Andrew Dallas, Willie Collum, Bobby Madden, John Beaton.
‘They might make bad decisions, you might not agree with them but they will speak to you and give you a reason for it.
‘Or they can say: “Listen, I watched it back I got it wrong, I’m sorry”, stuff like that. They are going to make mistakes.
‘It’s the ones that don’t talk to you. “Get out my face”. See all that stuff? I know it shouldn’t annoy you but it does and makes you think: Right, I don’t like this guy. I think I’ve changed my approach over the years. When I first came in, I was constantly on at them. I still get the odd yellow and red card here and there but I’ve curbed a lot of that behaviour.
‘If I were a referee and there was someone like me right in your face shouting at you, then I’d be thinking: “First chance, he’s getting booked”. That’s only human nature. You can’t blame them for that.
‘I coach the kids here on a Sunday. I can’t tell them not to shout at referees if they’ve seen me doing it on a Saturday.’
With Alfredo Morelos in the league, MacKinnon’s disciplinary record has been placed in the shade by the card count of the Colombian who misses today’s game through suspension.
Steven Gerrard’s hosts have incurred eight red cards this term, with Morelos the chief culprit for leaving 10 team-mates in the lurch or being absent from key fixtures while banned.
That must be a jarring feeling, says MacKinnon, which should prompt a player to clean up his act.
‘Luckily enough, most of the times I’ve been red-carded we’ve still managed to get a positive result,’ he explained. ‘So you don’t feel as bad.
‘But as soon as you’re up the stairs, the gaffer lets you know what he thinks about it. You don’t want to let the boys down.
‘It happens from time to time — and you don’t mind the odd one — but you can’t have stupid red cards all the time. You just become a liability.’