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Some interesting comments from Lee Wilkie in today's Dundee Courier. "I would scrap VAR in Scottish football tomorrow. The technology affects the game far too much in a negative way and we saw the very worst of that in Dundee’s seemingly endless game at Kilmarnock. Of course, we want to help referees get really close calls correct but the technology gets involved far too much. And it affects the way players play the game, too. Again, not in a good way. I think players dive even more now than they did before. I’m not talking about blatant dives where there is no contact. I’m talking about situations where the forward feels a hand on the back and hits the deck. They do that knowing the Video Assistant Referee is watching and they might get a penalty out of very little. For me, that’s not what football should be about. It is a technical game but there should still be the physical aspect of battling for the ball with someone else. When VAR reviews a decision, they only look for contact but crucially not whether that contact is enough to constitute a foul. You will see strikers running into the box thinking more about initiating contact with a defender than actually scoring the chance. VAR in Scotland has not had many successes to shout about and Saturday at Rugby Park certainly wasn’t one of them. An eight-minute delay doesn’t help anyone. Spectators don’t want to be hanging about that long and, even though Dundee eventually got the penalty, it didn’t help them either. It doesn’t look good for our game. The SPFL and SFA are probably breathing a sigh of relief that didn’t happen in one of the title-deciding fixtures coming up."

That's probably a given, but if VAR in Scotland can't conclusively prove there was contact on Maswanhise, there can be absolutely no doubt it's not fit for purpose.

I disagree. Blaming Slattery here gives the officials a pass. He’s already been punished, so anything that happens to him or his teammates following this should be judged on its own merits, not dragged in from previous incidents. We’ve already seen that different standard applied against Falkirk and Hearts. If officials can’t apply the laws fairly and impartially regardless of history, they shouldn’t be in the job. Suggesting a player or team can be refereed to a different standard because of the past just excuses poor officiating, normalises inconsistency and, at worst, bias. That’s on the referees, not the player.

For a left field punt - Noah Chilvers at Ross County - was dynamite prior to a Slattery type injury. Not playing well currently in a terrible terrible team - don't think he will fancy D1 much.

I think it is all going to come together for this one and it is going to be the statement win of the season. The jewel in the crown!!!

There is no incentive to improve no matter how many are involved. Irrespective of how many errors they make or how many times they ignore the Laws, with Collum in charge they are untouchable and decisions justified to the extreme. You just have to watch the farcical monthly review to see the institution in action. Collum has devised his own personal rule book. Quote ' Our stakeholders don't want to see that'. Translation ' We will ignore the Laws (sometimes)'. Possibly one reason why none of his team of experts made the 150 heading to the USA. That speaks volumes. Change will only be possible when leadership is honest and prepared to apply standards. How about instead of an ex referee being in charge, they appoint a former non Scottish player who understands the game and can tell the difference between intent and accidental, the difference between natural and unnatural? Move on from mates covering mates. Better still, just scrap VAR. I am now at the stage where hearing the justification for the ever growing number of errors is more frustrating than the errors themselves.

It’s the inconsistency in decisions that’s actually doing my tits in. You can say what you want about Slattery, but the St Mirren player turned and actually swung at him. We were all debating afterwards if he’d caught him, it’s a red all day no question, but I always thought the intent was enough. Same as when a player flies in two-footed (like Lee Lucas did) but still misses, players know VAR is watching now so its a waste of time feigning things. Slattery still got utterly vilified, yet Cantwell was pretending he’d been elbowed in the face a few seasons ago at Fir Park, ironically against Slattery, and that just gets brushed off as per, no meltdown. Then you’ve got that 7-minute spell against Falkirk last week. The ref was atrocious - gave them a free kick when McGinn was fouled first, let a blatant foul on Just go without even a word, and then the coup de grâce: the missed penalty and the sending off. I say 7 minutes, but the whole game followed the same pattern. Even in one of Willie Collum’s reviews, he talks about a similar incident where no penalty was given when a player’s head was clipped at knee height, and the reasoning aligns with putting himself in danger. You just know he’ll be inconsistent again the next time he’s on. After all, he was greeting about the Balmer decision last season against Killie where the player was entitled to challenge for the ball, but Kofi wasn't. It still boggles my mind that we had 100 world class appilcants and he's the one for the role. Back in the day, when wrongful red cards were quickly appealed I think 8 or so from Collum was successfully appealed over the piece, whereas others were 1. Honestly, what is the game coming to when players are getting sent off for DOGSO on the halfway line? Or even reading Kevin Clancy's description of the Celtic incident. I would love to be optimistic and say it's going to get worse before it gets better, but I'll just stick to it's going to get worse. More changes around the World Cup will happen as per, then you have Arsene Wenger's offside rule currently getting tested, then that will be implemented no doubt, but it will still contain the same old annoyances. Apologies for the moan but I can seldom muster up the strength to post on here nowadays, so thankful that we have been playing the way we have been. It would be nice to see more emphasis put on it; they did a questionnaire in the summer and released the results, and most people who voted wanted it rid of. I think they even started a petition or something on change.org, I'm positive I remember that being at 1.5k signatories.

The attitude towards Motherwell on social media has definitely swung recently. No doubt the inevitable 'too big for their boots' backlash accounts for some of that, but since Slattery's ban, 'diving cheats' is thrown out every time one of our guys goes down. Luckily, we have fair minded, competent referees who are immune to that stuff.

I've got to admit, that I am slowly falling into the ' can't be arsed anymore' category. Which, in itself is bewildering to me, as Ive been going for well over fifty years now and this season has been one of the best from a pure footballing perspective. Over the years, we got some absolutely stinking decisions against us and probably quite a few in our favour, which don't get memorised so much. However, the introduction of VAR, should have been a force for good, but has now became the antithesis of what it was supposed to be. Games are now being refereed from a secret broom cupboard somewhere, because the on field officials either cannot, or will not, make an decision or, in the few occasions that they actually call it, as they see it, have the balls to stick with a decision, when they are called the monitor to have another look. Modern day players add to this by going down at every opportunity, both sides were guilty of this yesterday and it seems to happen everywhere, every week. However, having a game re-refereed, five weeks after the event was a tipping point for me, we've all had our say, on what did/didn't happen that night. But I've always been in the 'when the full time whistle blows, then the game is over' camp when it comes to on field activities. Over officialdom is killing our game at an ever rapid pace and the people at the top need to get the message, but that message has to come from the fans and by that I mean every club, that is forced to use VAR on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, what should be an exciting post split period looks like a bit of a slog for me personally, however I very much doubt, I am the only one.