I've watched it a few times to get an idea for key moments where a different approach could have been taken by the entire team in order to either avoid or contain what had happened. Of course, this has been done with the benefit of hindsight and, so, it will seem overly critical but we can use this as a learning experience to see like situations in our own matches that will hopefully avoid situations like this.
The first thing is between seconds three where the striped player feels he's been fouled, looks to the AR and the ref and you can hear a loud "****ing hell ref!" either from the sideline or the crowd, I can't tell which, and the fifth second where the blue number ten takes a bit of a liberty with the thrower. This would have been a good indication that the temperature of the match was getting pretty high and the referee should have communicated with his assistants that it was time to take control. The AR should have spoken to the players directly in front of him (striped who thought he got fouled and was pretty upset and the three or four blue players who were around him -- obviously a potential hot spot) and the referee should have made clear to the striped player that these chippy little hip thrusts weren't on today as it was immediately in front of him and there was a clear frustration there as well. To my mind, taking control here (even if it meant giving a trifling little foul like the push out) would have been enough to stamp his authority and could have avoided the next five minutes.
Twenty seconds later, there is a shocking two-footed, jumping tackle by blue that could have been avoided with a free kick to white second earlier, in my opinion. Nonetheless, we all make mistakes and miss a few things so we're here. The referee is in position to see the oncoming challenge (which he should have recognized earlier given the speed with which the blue player was running in and the elevated temperature of the match) and made damn certain to sprint towards the place instead of the leisurely jog he took to get parallel. If you don't just know something's coming here, than I don't know what -- it was palpable while watching a video, I can only imagine how tense it was on the pitch at the time. Had he been closer, he could have hit the whistle much harder and used his voice to say he was there and was going to deal with it. Doing so, he would have had the red out of his pocket in a quick hurry and the player would have been off. No need for the fight, no need for the subsequent **** storm. When the tackle is made, it looks like the ref has begun what was by all accounts a slow run to the spot and then when the camera comes back, he seems to be awfully far away from the place considering that the two players are now squared up to one another.
To me, it looks like he's resigned to the fact that there's going to be a brawl and so he gets into place for that. My suggestion would have been to get in there and defuse the two players at the heart of it all and then moved out as players started rushing in. He should have been on the spot at 26 seconds (well, earlier if you take my advice in the last paragraph) and he should have had the red out of his pocket and the player sent off. He didn't, and he went to a position to try and triangulate with his team as he was, as I said, resigned to a brawl. He goes to the right position for triangulation, and his far assistant seems to be getting there -- in his own time, mind, but getting there. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, the near assistant doesn't think that triangulation is what's happening here and he gets to the spot of the foul (where the referee should have been about ten seconds ago!) to try and diffuse the situation.
By now, we're at 42 seconds where the AR is exactly in the middle of the brawl (in other words, completely useless), the referee is circling the incident because he has nearly no help and the other AR, who was on his way to triangulate, has decided to stop at centre to deal with three players who are not likely to start throwing punches at any point. Where should he be? Just about opposite the referee, where there is a second group of players trying to use his voice to calm that down and keep an eye on that just in case that erupts into more than it already is. At 45 seconds, I cringe because an expensive beep flag is dropped on the ground and stepped on several times.
Skip ahead (noting only that the referee's whistling is good, strong and consistent but he should add in his voice perhaps more than he does) to 1.54. The referee relies on advice from the Assistant Referees who were either dealing with non-starter issues or smack dab in the centre of it all which is a bit silly given that the advice they can give came from a bad position on the field of play. He sends off two players, I can't really keep track of who is who among the issue but I'm not certain that he's actually ever sent off the player who committed the first tackle! I'd have sent the tackler off, another player from blue was at the heart of it all and a player from white as well (probably the one who got tackled and decided to square up in the first place). Therefore, both teams have been evenly punished for the brawl, and the blue team has been punished for the hideous tackle. To me, at that point justice has been served.
The whole situation, in my mind was mishandled from the get-go and should have been dealt with much better. It was an avoidable situation, in the end. Oh and thanks for reading this essay. I look forward to discussion.
