A&H

offside - is it worth flagging?

A

Arran Williams

Guest
On the line on Saturday, long ball forward to attacker who comes back from an an offside (not just talking a few yards but from inside defence penalty area to about half way between penalty area and halfway line) jumps and get gets his head to the ball. The defender, after being challenged puts his hand up and starts shouting offside along with 2 others along the back line. The attacker chases the ball but it ends up with the keeper.
I did flag but the referee waved it down but my question is would it be right to flag for offside in this scenario or keeping my flag down.
 
The Referee Store
As soon as the attacker has played the ball and/or interfered with the defender, you are obliged to put the flag up. The only time you would leave it down is if a through ball is clearly running through to the keeper unchallenged and you can apply the advantage to the defending team. From the sounds of it, the ref should have taken the flag as soon as the attacker had played the ball in the first instance instead of taking the chance of a collision between attacker and keeper but you were 100% correct to raise the flag. It's up to the ref whether or not he wants to take it or not depending on how he wants the game to flow. It's always helpful to know the offside flag is up and can be used as an "escape route" from a potentially difficult situation for the referee in one of these instances like the one you have just described.
 
Thanks xman just making sure for future games as im getting a supply league line every other week now, which also means im being assessed more.
 
Yup, 100% correct to flag it.

As soon as the attacker interfered with play/defender, he committed the offence. The referee decides whether to apply Advantage or not, you are there to assist him by giving him the information required for an informed decision. Which you did, he acknowledged it and I am sure appreciated it!

If you are being assessed as an AR, the I am sure the assessor will also talk to the ref about you, and this situation will have given you Brownie Points of the ref!
 
Not on this occassion.. he had to get off early and said hed just send us reports. Said we all had good games with some development points.
 
Arran Williams said:
Not on this occassion.. he had to get off early and said hed just send us reports. Said we all had good games with some development points.
Click to expand...

Good early indication then - I am still sure they will be some communication between assessor and ref before he finalises his report. There certainly should be.
 
You were correct to flag, as others have said, but I don't mind the decision of the referee to keep on playing either. If you can avoid a free kick, after all, why not?
 
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