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Rangers vs Hibs


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18 hours ago, Drew Brees said:

PAUL HANLON has claimed referee Bobby Madden ordered Hibs not to contest a drop ball as they chased an equaliser in the closing stages of Sunday’s defeat to Rangers.

The Easter Road outfit were desperate to pressurise makeshift keeper Ross McCrorie in the wake of Allan McGregor’s red card for lashing out at Marc McNulty.

But at an injury-time corner, a Rangers fan launched a second ball into play, resulting in Madden having to stop play and restart with a drop ball at the edge of the box.

Hibs were eager to challenge for possession so close to their hosts’ goal and the potentially vulnerable McCrorie.

But Hanlon said Madden told them they would have to agree to Rangers giving them the ball back, with Connor Goldson subsequently lashing the ball back into the Hibs’ half of the pitch and out for a throw-in.

The defender explained: “At the time, we were desperate to contest the drop ball. It was inside their penalty box and we didn’t want the ball going all the way back to our keeper.

So, we wanted to contest it, but the referee said that if Rangers wanted to give us the ball back we weren’t allowed to contest it.

“I didn’t know that was the rule now, but that seems to be the case.

We were trying to build momentum and keep the pressure on and that kind of put us a bit on the back foot again.”

The defeat — manager Paul Heckingbottom’s first in the league since taking over — ruled Hibs out of the race for third and fourth, and the possibility of European qualification

If Hanlon had anything about him he would have told Madden where to go. Not a chance Shinnie, Brown or Dicker would have given it up so limply.

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2 minutes ago, Principal Flutie said:

What would have happened if the Hibs players chose to just ignore Madden? Surely there's nothing he could have done about it.

It would be a booking for dissent, of course. 'Referee's decision is final' and the actual ramifications of Madden not knowing the rules would only get sorted out afterwards by the Roulette Wheel of Scottish Football Compliance.

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Guest Moomintroll
I'm more interested to know what would happen if two coconuts were thrown onto the pitch?
Either comedy breasts or with some quick thinking to split them, a rather splendid tribute to Monty Python.
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Guest Moomintroll
What would have happened if the Hibs players chose to just ignore Madden? Surely there's nothing he could have done about it.
As it will not be law until next season they could have ignored him, unfortunately I still think like a ref though so I know the almost imperceptible foul would not be long in getting awarded.
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Just now, Moomintroll said:
10 minutes ago, Principal Flutie said:
What would have happened if the Hibs players chose to just ignore Madden? Surely there's nothing he could have done about it.

As it will not be law until next season they could have ignored him, unfortunately I still think like a ref though so I know the almost imperceptible foul would not be long in getting awarded.

Kind of confirms my "referees are c***s to a man" theory that.

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Guest Moomintroll
Kind of confirms my "referees are c***s to a man" theory that.
I have to admit that was the case with me if I thought that someone had pulled a fly one behind my back. Equally if I knew I had fucked up, I would give a marginal decision the other way to correct my error. I am not talking about cards, penalties or offside decisions mind, just run of the mill free kicks (unless I knew someone had smacked someone else when I wasn't looking which happened a couple of times). Knowing the mindset however, I am pretty sure that if contested, a foul would not have been far away.
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4 minutes ago, Moomintroll said:
9 minutes ago, Principal Flutie said:
Kind of confirms my "referees are c***s to a man" theory that.

I have to admit that was the case with me if I thought that someone had pulled a fly one behind my back. Equally if I knew I had fucked up, I would give a marginal decision the other way to correct my error. I am not talking about cards, penalties or offside decisions mind, just run of the mill free kicks (unless I knew someone had smacked someone else when I wasn't looking which happened a couple of times). Knowing the mindset however, I am pretty sure that if contested, a foul would not have been far away.

As soon as the ball comes into the box from a corner the whistle goes,a bit like Hugh Dallas getting hit by a coin the ball comes into the box and he gives a penalty.

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In generally, it's not an entirely unreasonable approach to prevent a flashpoint in the box by not having a contested drop ball in there - the difference here is that there was no obvious solution to do so without creating controversy.

As an example, there are lots of cases where the referee stops the game for an injury whilst the goalkeeper has the ball in his hands, and in such cases you regularly see the ref quickly dropping it for the keeper to pick it up and restart. Technically the attacking team would be within their rights to contest that ball, and although in practice they usually don't, if it was the last minute of a big game then there would definitely be a temptation to do so (eg see Motherwell at Parkhead this season for similar). You could argue that the referee should really wait before he drops it, but he avoids a potential problem by doing "the right thing".

This time around, there wasn't really a "right thing". Hibs would correctly claim that their corner was interrupted, and that Rangers fans were responsible, so they would want to contest it. However, Rangers would argue that Scott Arfield headed away the actual match ball from the corner - even though the game had stopped by then, the corner was clearly a shiter which was going straight to him.

In that scenario, you have two teams looking to contest a drop ball in a dangerous area of the park, in a game which is already a powderkeg situation just after a red card. That is basically a referee's worst nightmare - you have the risk of Hibs scoring from it, which would cause pandemonium, or the players getting worked up and one of them going in high from the immediate drop ball, which would be a red card and would start a fight. You can argue that he should just let it happen and then punish the players, but their job is also to control the game - when there's loads of red and yellow cards in a game the first suggestion is always that the referee has lost control of it.

All the referee can really do in these situations is make a suggestion to the players, but none of it is actually enforceable. Madden might have told the Hibs players to let Rangers kick it back - I don't think that's entirely unreasonable given that without the ball being chucked on, we'd have seen play continue with Arfield's header flying out of the box, probably to a Hibs player. However, he can't and didn't force that to happen. When he dropped the ball, David Gray was standing right there - it's not as though he dropped it to a Rangers player uncontested. You can then see him telling the players that the ball is in play. Everyone then stood about pondering the situation for several seconds, and eventually it was launched up the park.

It's not really an ideal situation for anyone, but I'd like to hear an alternative suggestion as to how the play should have been restarted in the cirumstances.

Edited by craigkillie
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6 hours ago, Moomintroll said:
21 hours ago, bennett said:
Even Cher can't turn back time, not much you can do about it now.
 

Meant to say benny but got sidetracked, replied to that giving you pelters as I misread what you meant, deleted it swiftly as I realised I had cocked up.

Never saw it but fair enough.

 

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