Re: [nas] man u - ars [R]

On Aug 8, 2004, at 7:29 PM, Bill Faucett wrote:

> The AR did put up the flag and from his position it probably looked 
> like
> the other player was going to get the ball. The referee saw that Smith
> was able to play through it and the other player pulled off the ball
> before he got involved. The AR probably could have waited a second to
> see what would happen before putting up the flag and the referee did a
> very nice job of recognizing the flag and selling his decision not to
> whistle and letting the AR know what he saw.
While I think in the end the call was correct, if you are Arse there is 
a bit of debate.  Smith's team mate that was in an offside position did 
two things that I think could make for an argument for the call to go 
the other way:

1) While he didn't touch the ball, he did ADVANCE towards the ball 
which could be considered "in the play".  When I am officiating if a 
player in an offside position is close to a ball and does make movement 
to the ball I will stop the play.

2) This offside player (i cant remember who it was, Bellion, I think) 
also held his defender back from stepping up to Smith's shot.  To call 
this would have been picky, but when you add it to the above I do think 
Arse had reason to complain.

The play happened so fast that I think that the refs made the correct 
call considering what they saw at the real speed.  But with replay I do 
think there is an argument of offside to be called, or a foul for 
holding back the defender.



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