Well I suppose the good news would be to suggest that barring the two recent high profile Celtic games there hasn't been any real need to post up views on the SPL since the Hibs V Rangers game (which incidentley I got wrong as Lafferty was ordered off for violent conduct for the attempted punch at McBride rather than the tackle on Miller).
Dundee Utd V Celtic
Knowing how MacDonald prepares for games I can quite categorically say that his pre-match instructions to all 3 officials would be to intervene if they believe that he has made a mistake in a big decision. This is common practice advice to match officials and almost all of them follow the same script for every game.
Now I can only make educated guesses at how Douglas came to change his mind (which is he absolutely able to do in the laws of the game) and my take would be that as soon as he has blown for a penalty and seen the reaction of the Dundee United players he's thought "oh no" and then looked across at his asst referee who at this stage has now taken up a position which would suggest to the trained eye that he absolutely agrees with it. The pre-match instructions would be to flag and take an exaggerated step away towards the half way line and since Craven has not done this then I can make two assumptions.
a) The Asst Ref believes 100% it was a penalty and MacDonald was correct in awarding the decision. When MacDonald has had his own doubts he has instigated the chat with the Asst and it has given himself a chance to take a breather and basically over-rule himself.
b) Craven doesn't believe it was a penalty but doesn't have the courage of his convictions to raise his flag at the time. If the recorded conversations suggest that the Asst Referee believes that it wasn't a penalty but he failed to raise his flag or inform the referee at the time then he will be quite rightly marked down for his performance. His career probably hinged on his answer to Douglas's question "Do you think it was a penalty?"
You go out there as a team and live or die as one.
Hugh Dallas I'm sure will be raging but one of the first things that your taught is even if it's messy it's more important to get the decision right at the time before the game has re-started. Talk of TV replays and the 4th official watching them, don't even listen to that. It would be career ending for the officials involved and the game WOULD have to be replayed.
Celtic V Rangers
Straight to the point, I don't think that it was a penalty but there was contact between the two players and can understand how Collum came to the decision.
I'm more disappointed in the fact that he failed to send off Samaras for an absolutely horrendous tackle on Naismith late on in the game, this tackle ticked every box for serious foul play.
As a postscript to Dundee United escapade, I've read on the forum that MacDonald will be downgraded because of the incident at Tannadice. I can only assume that someone has heard that he's due to come of the FIFA list at Christmas due to his age and 2+2=5.
It wouldn't surprise me though if he did take steps to become more involved in the mentoring & coaching of referee's and again it wouldn't be a surprise if he 'sacrificed' himself to make a point to the SFA/SPL at the end of the season and took early retirement from the senior list.
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