RateTheRef

Farai Hallam had a good game at Walsall v Accrington last night.

Fitness was good (noticably tall and very slim, if that counts for anything!), foul detection was very good and consistent, if maybe not quite so consistent with issuing of YCs. Two given for Accrington were for 'tactical' rather than nasty fouls and the two for Walsall in injury time for blocking a throw in and the old pretending you've not heard the whistle a couple of seconds ago and 'passing' the ball 40 yards away, all 4 YCs issued nailed on. Having earlier cautioned for those tactical fouls stopping promising situations, he could have issued 2 more for very similar types of challenges in the last 10 minutes (1 for each side) plus the Accrington keeper holding on to the ball for a good 5 seconds or so after Walsall's first goal was also probably worthy of a YC.   

Of the major KMIs, he gave a penalty to Accrington. Deep cross, attacker jumps to head ball back across goal, hits defender's arm a yard or so away, above shoulder height in a totally unnatural position. One of those that in years gone by may well not have been give as unintentional but that's the risk if you jump like that now, so was definitely a pen for me.

Another ball over/not over the line debate, you get none for years and then 2 in the space of 3 home games! This time AR1 would have had a perfect, unobstructed view and was bang on the goal line to judge, with the ball being his side of the goal. Didn't give the goal although it does look over the line from the photo attached, noting the position of the ball in relation to the back leg being a fair bit behind the front knee which is on the goal line, albeit obviously not from the angle AR1 would have had and that you can never really be 100% sure from still photos.

Overall, I'd say a good performance that was probably just shy of very good. Will be interesting to see how he follows that up with his next game at the weekend.