You Are the Ref...

Brought to you in association with the Guardian's excellent You Are The Ref series, http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/series/you-are-the-ref, specifically this question submitted by me
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/sep/24/you-are-ref-edgar-davids

FA refereeing supremo Keith Hackett disagrees with me and Richie Winter, but anyhoo...

It seems like a long, long time ago that Dundalk travelled to Bray on the opening day of the season. Ian Foster’s Black and White Army, playing a nerve-shredding 3-5-2 formation, barely scraped a 1-0 win over a Bray side that had been preparing for life in the First Division. Dundalk went on to storm through the first third of the season... and then there was the second third of the season, about which we shall not speak right now. Please, let’s not even think about it right now.
That first game of the season was memorable for the first extraordinary refereeing controversy of the season. It took all of three minutes, and boy, was it a beauty! Shane O’Neill was played in behind a ponderous Dundalk defence and found himself bearing down on goal, with just Peter Cherrie to beat. Liam Burns came from nowhere and intervened with a speculative tackle from behind, taking O’Neill down in the box. Burns clearly committed a foul, getting the man but not the ball, and referee Richie Winter immediately whistled and pointed to the spot. Which is all well and good, except the ball broke loose to Jake Kelly who slipped it into an empty net. By any interpretation of the advantage rule Bray should have been allowed the microsecond necessary for Kelly to score, but unfortunately Winter had already blown up, so he had no choice but to award the penalty. Now it gets complicated! By the letter of the law a player must be sent off for what is sometimes known in the trade as DOGSO – “Denying an Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunity”. That’s a professional foul to you and me. Burns had committed a foul and conceded a penalty, and he clearly denied Bray an obvious goal scoring… or did he? Because the ball broke loose and was finished to the net by Kelly, it could certainly be argued that Burns did not deny a goal scoring opportunity. In fact the OGSO (Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunity- keep up!) was denied, not by Liam Burns who merely changed the nature of the OGSO, but by the referee’s early whistle! Richie Winter tacitly acknowledged his error by awarding the penalty and only booking Burns. He had no other choice really, though it must have been tempting to reach for the red card as Bray had indeed been denied a certain goal. It was a brave and correct decision in the circumstances. Unfortunately Winter was forced to make Bray suffer for his mistake with the early whistle- Burns did not deserve to walk because of his mistake. (That’s all fine coming from a Dundalk fan, perhaps some of the travelling supporters tonight would apply a different interpretation to the rules in that situation.)
Naturally, to add insult in injury, Peter Cherrie saved O’Neill’s penalty and Dundalk went on to sneak an ill-deserved 1-0 win. If Bray felt hard done by they seemed to channel that sense of injustice when they last visited Oriel. Wanderers played superbly to record their first win of the season against a Dundalk side that was sitting on top of the table at the time. Now that does seem a long, long time ago. No doubt the Seagulls will be hoping for a repeat performance…. we’d settle for another ill-deserved three points. A jammy 1-0 win will do, courtesy of an o.g., a shot deflected in off a passing dog (or Seagull) or a controversial refereeing decision that goes in our favour just once this season. Okay, maybe twice.