Personally I think the refereeing at the moment is chaotic.
MotD demonstrates that individual refs have their own versions of new rules, there is no consistency, and some refs can’t even produce consistency in one game.
If we are having zero tolerance to pulling at corners etc and a stumble is now an offence, then we will have 12 penalties a game.
But refs are now giving one and ignoring the rest, it’s like a tickbox system - meanwhile the shirt pulling continues.
As for dissent, Mason was all over it with Redmond, then ignored it for the rest of the game, while refs at other matches didn’t give cards at all.
If you book players for any visible sign of dissent we will have 9 players v 10 players most weeks.
How often do you see a Saints captain run thirty yards to ask the ref what the fuck he is doing?
That’s how bad it got yesterday, and a small indicator was the injury time in the first half.
We had several lots of time wasting, a one minute delay for a free kick, plus a couple of feigned injuries, the second one held the game up for 90 seconds.
That amounts to three mins in most people’s books, a a theory supported by the ref pointing at his watch several times - we get one minute!..it doesn’t change the game but it tells you all you need to know about the officials.
The bottom line is that the best way to reduce dissent is to get most decisions right or at least appear to be balanced in your decision making.
The refs need to up their game, and their association needs to retrain and get everyone on the same page.