I’m unconvinced on Henrique’s handball but Thomas Broich’s opening goal for Brisbane Roar was offside, and should have been disallowed.
It was a game packed with goals, drama and not a little controversy. Sunday’s major semi-final second leg between Central Coast Mariners and Brisbane Roar was a fantastic spectacle but questions have been raised over the some of the decisions made during the game.
In regards to Brisbane’s opening goal, the considerations you need to take to decide if it should be penalised for offside is whether Mitch Nichols was interfering with play – clearly he was in an offside position when the ball was played – and the secondary consideration to see if he would be penalised if he was interfering with play or with the line of sight of the keeper.
Our view is that he clearly was doing both and it should have been penalised offside. The goal shouldn-t have stood.
That decision was made by from the assistant referee, in this case Ashley Beecham. What he would have looked at is the initial play of the ball, which then came into the centre. Nichols was originally in an offside position but we always wait to see what the outcome is to see whether the player does interfere with play.
It was a difficult one because the ball hung in the air for so long but Mitch did rush towards the line of sight of Mat Ryan and I think it-s pretty clear that constitutes interfering with play. In that instance our expectation would be that the assistant referee would penalise that as offside.
In the finals series we-re employing our best performing match officials over the season, and Ashley has been one of the outstanding performers of the year. Unfortunately he got that one wrong, and it had a big impact on the game.
We-ve got two games to go in the finals series so we-ll obviously review our processes for the assistant referees, but unfortunately it was interpreted wrong and we-ll just have to cop it on the chin.
Graham Arnold and I have talked about it; he asked my opinion and I said I thought it was offside and while we strive to get decisions right 100 per cent of the time, sometimes mistakes are made.
We-ll look at the process at how in the remaining games and next year, in that instance, a better outcome can be achieved. From a referee-s point of view we can just take it and learn from it; we-ll review the performance of Ashley in the next couple of weeks and we-ll see what we can take from it.
And in regards to Henrique’s handball, I-m not convinced that-s a definite penalty. Handball-s such a difficult one because it-s the only rule in Law 12 which speaks of intent – it-s got to be an intentional handball. I-m not convinced that was a deliberate handball.
There is an argument either way, that the ball struck him when he was looking away from the ball and at the opposing player, and his arms are up a little bit. In this case it comes down to the interpretation of the referee; I-m not convinced either way and I-m certainly not critical of Jarred Gillet there.
