Grey area causes yellow peril

26/10/12: JJ- "Any new rule that they seem to bring out has so many grey areas it causes nothing but confusion.

Jim Jefferies is still struggling to understand what appears to be a new interpretation of the offside law. Last Saturday in the First Division match at home to Morton, Ryan Wallace ended up being yellow carded after disputing an offside decision by referee Craig Charleston that had everybody in the ground puzzled.

Jefferies' Assistant Manager, Gerry McCabe and Club Captain Jordan McMillan attended the referee's briefing on Sunday while JJ took in the SFA Youth Cup tie in Dingwall where Dunfermline won through by 2-0. He reported what happened:-

"We asked Gerry to bring up the situation but Craig Thomson already knew about it since Craig Charleston had warned that he might get asked about it. Craig Thomson who took the session said that it was a new rule but that interpretation of it shouldn't have been allowed to stand because Husband wasn't offside.

"Any new rule that they seem to bring out has so many grey areas it causes nothing but confusion. The most important thing on Saturday was that we didn't know the rule. I don't think the Referees Association was in a position to tell us the rule because this is something that has maybe just happened in the last few weeks. I don't know about that.

"When players don't know a rule and you clearly see what used to be the rule, the referee shouldn't book the player. The player has every right to bring it to the referee's attention and be angry. All you need to do is to say 'look the rule has changed' - that is what he did with me. Nobody had told me that and I said that this would need to get clarified.

"When you think about it, if that is unintentional and it is classed as offside - if you have a centre half who goes up and misheads the ball unintentionally knocking it into the path of the striker, you'd tell me he is offside then?

"It is the same as on Saturday. The player was unlucky the ball ricocheted off him at an angle; it could have gone either way. Hubby was in an offside position but that would be a bad break for them. To make matters worse through all that confusion, they went straight up the park and scored.

"We are not blaming the referee for that but we got caught in a situation where I think the referee knew that we didn't know about the new rule. He should have had a quiet word with Ryan Wallace to say calm down but he said that he had to book him because of the way that he ran at the linesman. I ran towards the linesman but he didn't book me!

"I find it strange and they could have been a little bit more sympathetic to Ryan being angry because I think most of the players were too and in that case he should have booked every one of the Dunfermline players and all the fans because they were raging with him as well. He was appealing the case because it came off a defender. He ran to the linesman saying you got it wrong because he didn't know the rule. Craig should just have had a quiet word, give him a warning saying don't go on any more or I will book you.

"It was unjust and to us, his complaint at the time was justified. We can tell them now that if it happens again, they will know that there is an interpretation there - whatever it is, we will need to try and find out."

The Pars gaffer feels that the change only confuses matters however adding:-

"Forget all these grey areas, we need to get back to the days of black and white. We have had enough of it with second phase offside which caused mayhem. It has settled down a bit now but we probably got that fed up complaining about it, that we just accept it. The same will happen with any new rule but right now it is just a small issue and we shouldn't moan about that because of the result."

Jim Jefferies also confirmed that Dunfermline had asked Falkirk to consider bringing forward the Tuesday night fixture on 9th April to Saturday 3rd November to fill a blank day left by Scottish Cup ties, but Falkirk declined since a number of their players had already been told that they could take that weekend off and had made plans to travel home.