Before I start... remember this phrase "The Flash Lag Effect".
Last week, we were fortunate enough at Cornwall FA to have Premier League Assistant Referee Simon Long take us for a coaching session. He set up a little square and had a tutor feeding balls in to an attacker, with two defenders in the box trying to catch the striker offside. At the same time, a group of us would take turns running the line, calling the decisions as we saw them. Simon was sat on the side with a view right across the defensive line with his iPad recording the exercise.
Once we had gone inside for some fantastic presentations, he told us that about 80% of the decisions were incorrect. We were all taken aback by it all and thought "no chance, I'm a good Assistant"... He talked to us about the flash lag effect. He said, how many of you made the "he is just offside" call... the majority of us raised our hands. Well, he sent the videos through to us via email and I was Interested to see why he though 80% of us were incorrect. Now, being one for development and training, I decided to open the videos in an Adobe programme and go to the frame at the exact pointbthe ball was kicked... I was astounded by the results. Some of the calls are absolutely unbelievable, both correct and incorrect. I couldn't believe how many level 9-4's were getting these calls wrong, including myself who got 1 out of 3 incorrect. Quite a few got 3 out of 3 wrong, only one referee got all three correct (there were three in total that got them all correct but their chances were easy and you'd have to be blind to miss them).
I was amazed. As someone who is very interested in training and development, I've got fellow referees joining me soon to recreate this exact same exercise in order to further develop our ability.
I'm just uploading the photos to Flickr so you can see just how many of these calls were made, note that on many occasions, you can't even see the Assistant in the frame, which is a massive development point on their positioning because the majority who are behind the last defender got their calls incorrect.
For those Interested in the flash lag theorem, I'll insert a few links for a detailed explanation in the comments.
Click here to see the stills. https://www.flickr.com/photos/126621364@N06/shares/wSh13R
Last week, we were fortunate enough at Cornwall FA to have Premier League Assistant Referee Simon Long take us for a coaching session. He set up a little square and had a tutor feeding balls in to an attacker, with two defenders in the box trying to catch the striker offside. At the same time, a group of us would take turns running the line, calling the decisions as we saw them. Simon was sat on the side with a view right across the defensive line with his iPad recording the exercise.
Once we had gone inside for some fantastic presentations, he told us that about 80% of the decisions were incorrect. We were all taken aback by it all and thought "no chance, I'm a good Assistant"... He talked to us about the flash lag effect. He said, how many of you made the "he is just offside" call... the majority of us raised our hands. Well, he sent the videos through to us via email and I was Interested to see why he though 80% of us were incorrect. Now, being one for development and training, I decided to open the videos in an Adobe programme and go to the frame at the exact pointbthe ball was kicked... I was astounded by the results. Some of the calls are absolutely unbelievable, both correct and incorrect. I couldn't believe how many level 9-4's were getting these calls wrong, including myself who got 1 out of 3 incorrect. Quite a few got 3 out of 3 wrong, only one referee got all three correct (there were three in total that got them all correct but their chances were easy and you'd have to be blind to miss them).
I was amazed. As someone who is very interested in training and development, I've got fellow referees joining me soon to recreate this exact same exercise in order to further develop our ability.
I'm just uploading the photos to Flickr so you can see just how many of these calls were made, note that on many occasions, you can't even see the Assistant in the frame, which is a massive development point on their positioning because the majority who are behind the last defender got their calls incorrect.
For those Interested in the flash lag theorem, I'll insert a few links for a detailed explanation in the comments.
Click here to see the stills. https://www.flickr.com/photos/126621364@N06/shares/wSh13R
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