I still think Ganson didn't go to the VR just too spite the Bradford player after their reaction towards him, very unprofessional.

You're probably right, he does seem to let his emotions get hold of him and you can tell when he's annoyed with one team or one player and you know a penalty for some reason isnt far off!

If true that would be even better

I'm surprised that there hasn't been some sort of analytical tool added to the VR for calls like that. Something akin to hawk eye, or cyclops in tennis. Would help the referee in situations like that.

Maybe they do have thing like that, but we only get to see the stills

Hopefully this would help with the 1 or 2 decisions every week where the replays don't show the receiving player because he is right out on the wing. Usually the Sky cameras don't show him until 3 or 4 seconds after the kick has gone through... so just gotta guess that he was onside....

.. always annoys me those ones.

Your signature, while technically accurate, could do with an update by the way.

Would be very hard to do, a camera would have to be in line with the ball at all times during the game.

Maybe in 10 years time the ball and all the players boots will have gps type things in them to show there exact position at any time.

Even having a virtual line like the picture above would help though

I seem to have read/seen somewhere that some American channels do something like that with the puck in ice hockey, so they can illuminate it on the screen and make it easier to see. Not sure whether that's sophisticated enough to rely on for refereeing purposes though?

Clearly tennis and cricket have the huge advantage that their calls are all against fixed points (lines of a tennis court, line of the stumps) so the camera positon is easy. Much harder to achieve for something like offside where the decision could be required at any pointon the length of the pitch.

Surely an easier way would be to superimpose a series of lines relative to the position of fixed point cameras, similar to the goal line technology used by football analysts?

I think they can do this very easily but it will take a few minutes, doing what I did and getting the computer to work out the vanishing points etc, so we could be waiting quite a while until they have got the correct prospective lines sorted out. I think that is the problem!

From what fixed point ?

To do it properly you'd have to accurately place the position of the camera relative to the player in question and then make the adjustment for perspective, easy enough to do given time but virtually impossible to do instantly upon demand during any of the seconds of play available.

The points of reference would change in every ground too so you'd have to have several fixed camera positions in every SL ground that do not change through the season, once the fixed position was known you'd only need to measure the distance from the player to the camera and then let the 3D software work out the perspective before drawing the line.

Or we could just rely on two referees making their own mind up by looking at the TV coverage several times and then listening to what the two clowns in the commentary box say - then go for the opposite decision.

All you would need to do is keep the super imposed lines parrallel to the nearest marked line, ie to the try line or the 20m line and draw them right across the pitch........I think !

Assuming that your camera was postioned on one of the lines yes, but if it was five metres in front of the line as the Sky photo appears to be then the only true line is the one that starts at the camera lens and goes straight up the photo, all the other lines to either side of that are skewed by the position of the lens relative to the players foot and/or the ball.

I'd say its impossible to do with any more accuracy than "best guess" that the referees use, doesn't stop Sky trying to prove a ridiculous theory with a line that would actually be several inches wide if it was real though