Graham Laws referees a QPR game for the first time since the Wrexham debacle in October 2003 as the R's visit Hull City on Saturday afternoon.

Hull City v Queens Park Rangers
Referee – Graham Laws (Tyne and Wear)
Assistants – Atkins (West Yorkshire) and Smith (West Yorkshire)
Fourth Official – Brown (East Yorkshire)

Communication between referees and assistants, or lack of it, has come to the fore in a few matches I’ve seen recently. Last Saturday at Loftus Road Tamas Priskin hit the deck in the QPR penalty area just after half time in what looked like a blatant penalty to me, people have agreed and disagreed with me on that in equal measure, and with referee Clive Penton unsighted he looked across to his linesman who just sort of shrugged. Similarly at Ipswich the week before Patrick Agyemang was chopped down on the edge of the penalty area and even though he had a great view the referee looked across to his assistant who gave nothing.

Now you could say that in both these cases the linesman did make a decision – he decided it wasn’t a foul. But judging by their rabbits-in-headlights like reaction my guess is they were surprised that the official was looking to them and froze. Some referees, and I always hated this when I ran the line, instruct the linesmen to just do offsides and throw ins and leave all fouls to the main man. This is to avoid referees being made to look silly by giving decisions forced upon them by the linesmen but the way I see it if you have a man out there to help let him help. I remember getting a serious ticking off from a referee at Gainsborough Trinity one night for flagging for a penalty, it was, when I’d been told to only do throw ins and offsides. I wonder if there was confusion over this situation at our Preston and Ipswich games?

Certainly the man on the line in the Trophy final last week was given free reign to give what he liked. MK Dons beat Grimsby 2-0 but Town missed a penalty, rightly awarded by the linesman, in the first half. Then after half time MK Dons had a spot kick of their own which came some five seconds after the same linesman had raised his flag for offside. For whatever reason the linesman bottled it, dropped his flag and lined up for the pen. Still after said Phil Joslin was a good appointment for that match something was bound to go wrong. I’m not sure how many, if any, of these official teams were wired up as the Premiership referees are. If they’re not then that needs to be changed for next season – Championship linesmen are awful, perhaps improved communication with the referee may help a little bit.

The man charged with communicating with the assistants and players at Hull v QPR this weekend is Graham Laws from Tyne and Wear. He has a mixed past with QPR and hasn't done a Rangers game in quite some time after his last game with us descended into a farce.

Laws has shown 67 yellows (2.39 a game) and two reds in 28 matches this season. Of those 28, 13 have been in the Championship and 36 of his 67 yellows and one red have been shown in those games. This is his second Hull City match of the season after taking charge of their opening day defeat by Plymouth at the KC Stadium. Barmby, Delaney and Windass were booked as the home side went down 3-2, ironically that booking was one tenth of the reason Damien Delaney has been banned for the last two QPR matches, a ban he returns from this Saturday. Last season he showed 119 yellows (3.216 a game) and nine reds in 37 matches.

He hasn’t had a QPR game for some time, more than four years in fact, but those that were there will remember it well. During the promotion season we got 2-0 midweek win at Wrexham where Laws booked eight, sent off Kevin McLeod and played six minutes of added time with the score at 1-0, fortunately we got a breakaway to seal the win but it was nervy stuff. Furlong, Gallen, Gnohere, McLeod and Sabin all got booked for the R’s. Now that game was before my time on this website but it sticks in my mind as an incredible display of refereeing. None of the usual recollections in this column this week because as I say it was before my time but it was a shocking display.

The season before he was in charge of our 3-0 defeat at Notts County and a 4-0 success at Mansfield.

Looking elsewhere and it seems we’ve had a lucky escape with Laws. Uriah Rennie and Andy Hall are both officiating Championship matches this weekend, at Coventry and Charlton respectively. Lower down Prem ref Mark Clattenburg has the Leeds v Carlisle promotion battle on Saturday lunch time and then Wolves v West Brom next Tuesday.

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