Craig Pawson returns to Loftus Road for the first time since the opening day of the season this weekend as QPR host West Brom.
Referee >>> Craig Pawson (Sheffield), highly thought of young official who is embarking on his first full season in the Premier League after ten top flight appointments last season.
Assistants >>> Mick McDonough (Northumberland) and Mark Scholes (Bucks)
Fourth Official >>> Mike Dean (Wirral), endeared himself to the QPR faithful with a scandalously one-sided display in the home match against Manchester City earlier this season.
Queens Park Rangers 0 Hull City 1, Saturday August 16, 2014, Premier League
That worked out well for QPR, who have in the past not bothered having medical examinations of new signings, and don’t tend to be too thorough with them when they do. The R’s brought Austin to Loftus Road and rode back to the Premier League on the back of his 20 goal campaign, which included two crucial strikes in a play-off semi final against Wigan. When the Tigers turned out to be QPR’s first day opposition, Austin will have afforded himself a wry grin and when referee Craig Pawson harshly penalised the visitors’ excellent centre half James Chester for handball in his own area five minutes from time the script seemed written.
Austin, who scored five out of five from the spot in 2013/14, grasped the ball immediately to his chest while Hull protested the decision, and looked confident as he stepped up at the Loft End, but Hull goalkeeper Alan McGregor and his understudy Steve Harper had picked up a quirk of Austin’s run up in their pre-match homework that can give away the direction of his kicks and the Scottish stopped saved the ball low to his right. Not only that but, crucially, he managed to scoop away the rebound with his trailing leg. Rangers’ centre forward will have to wait another week at least for a first ever Premier League goal.
Hull will claim that justice was done. Chester’s hand had been down by his side and made no deliberate move towards the ball when he was penalised for blocking a cross from substitute Junior Hoilett. Whether the penalty decision from Pawson, a relative newcomer to the top division himself after promotion last season, signifies a change in interpretation from the "unnatural position” understanding we seemed to have reached last season, and a move towards the way they work in La Liga where penalties are awarded for the ball striking the hand regardless of position, intent or distance from the player only time will tell but it seemed like a harsh call to me.
At the midway point of the first half a terrific pass from Joey Barton gave Remy a chance to turn inside Davies and extract the game’s first yellow card. The free kick was well right of centre and seemed ideally placed for Faurlin’s left foot only for Barton to step forward and try to curl it right round the wall and into the net on the keeper’s blind side. Shane Warne in his prime couldn’t have turned a ball that far and the attempt was pure ego. As I feared when Barton scored a fine dipping free kick at Leyton Orient in pre-season, he’s clearly going to insist on taking absolutely every dead ball that Rangers get this season and his execution of a range of set pieces here was wildly inconsistent.
The momentum seemed to be leaning more and more towards QPR as the first half drew to a close with Loic Remy at the heart of a lot of their good work. The powerful Frenchman crossed for Jordon Mutch to glance a header wide at the near post when he might have scored, then shortly after Jelavic’s penalty shout he drove a pure strike straight at McGregor. He hit the deck appealing for a spot kick of his own just before half time but Pawson, rightly, showed no interest.
QPR: Green 7; Caulker 7, Ferdinand 7, Dunne 6 (Zamora 78, 5); Simpon 5 (Phillips 68, 5), Traore 6; Barton 6, Faurlin 6 (Hoilett 69, 6), Mutch 6; Remy 7, Austin 6
Subs not used: Henry, Onuoha, Hill, Murphy
Bookings: Dunne 68 (foul)
Hull: McGregor 8; Davies 7, Chester 8, Bruce 6 (McShane 45, 6); Robertson 6, Elmohamady 6; Huddlestone 6, Livermore 6, Snodgrass 6 (Quinn 40, 8); Ince 7 (Meyler 82, -), Jelavic 6
Subs not used: Brady, Figueroa, Harper, Aluko
Goals: Chester 52 (assisted Quinn)
Bookings: Davies 26 (foul), Jelavic 78 (foul)
Referee — Craig Pawson (Sheffield) 5 Overall, I thought he had an excellent control of the game, allowing it to flow in an unfussy manner. The three bookings were all correct and you couldn’t pick fault with him for 88 minutes. But I thought Nikica Jelavic was fouled by Traore in the first half and that should have been a penalty, and the spot kick that QPR were awarded was incredibly harsh on James Chester. Two big decisions wrong in my opinion, equals a lower mark than his overall performance really deserved.
Queens Park Rangers 2 Accrington Stanley 1, Tuesday August 24, 2009, League Cup
Sean McConville gave Heaton his first save in competitive football for Rangers with a speculative drive that the keeper easily gobbled up showing safe hands. Hearts were beating a little faster moments later though when a poor backpass from Stewart to Heaton bounced slowly to him, he did not receive a call for ‘man on’ and as he hurriedly tried to clear the ball he seemed to catch the oncoming McConville who went down like a scuttled pocket Battleship. Cue agonised expression, moaning etc. However when he realised only a goal kick had been given, he jumped swiftly up like a greyhound from trap one and ran after the referee for a good 25 yards. Jesus would have been proud of the seemingly miraculous recovery. McConville was rightly booed for some time afterwards.
QPR: Heaton 8, Ramage 7, Stewart 5, Gorkss 5 (Borrowdale 46, 5) Connolly 7, Ephraim 7, Mahon 4 (Routledge 68, 7) Leigertwood 5, Buzsaky 4, Vine 4, Agyemang 2 (Taarabt 46, 6)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Helguson, Pellicori, Balanta
Booked: Ramage (foul)
Goals: Ephraim 68 (assisted Ramage), Routledge 90 (assisted Ephraim)
Accrington Stanley: Martin, Kempson, Edwards, Winnard, Murphy (Kee 73), Procter, Joyce, Ryan (Turner 81), McConville (Grant 73), Symes, Miles
Subs Not Used: Dunbavin, Richardson, Paul Mullin, Gary King
Booked: Ryan
Goals: Symes 90
Referee: Craig Pawson (Sheffield)
Pawson refereed 27 games last season, ten of which were in the Premier League. Overall he showed 94 yellows and four reds in those games (3.48 yellows a match). His biggest haul in a single fixture was six yellows and a red, which he reached on two occasions before Christmas: Brighton 1 Forest 3, and Yeovil 2 Charlton 2 in the Championship. He was below his average in the Premier League games — 28 yellows and no reds across his ten fixtures. Two of those ten games involved Hull — their 2-0 defeat at Liverpool and 3-1 set back at Manchester United. He also refereed 3-0 home win against Sunderland in the FA Cup.
The season before he refereed 36 games spread across the three Football League divisions and two cup competitions. He showed 103 yellows and four reds in those games (2.86 bookings a match) and his biggest single haul was eight yellows in Burnley’s 2-2 home draw with Millwall in the second tier. He booked two in Hull’s 0-0 Boxing Day draw with Leicester.
Premier League >>> Anthony Taylor gets Newcastle v Sunderland. Brave appointment. Have the armed forces on standby.
Championship >>> Two Premier League referees drop down a division this weekend with Mike Jones taking Fulham v Sheff Wed, and Kevin Friend at Forest v Leeds.
League Two >>> Lee Probert, well out of favour so far this season, continues his descent from on high with Accrington v Wycombe.
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Pictures — Action Images