Terry Maddaford: Football? More like water polo

Football as it shouldn't be played.

No one - players, match officials or spectators - deserved to be subjected to what was passed off as an A-League match at North Harbour Stadium on Sunday.

From the first half-attempt to kick the sodden ball, it was apparent football wasn't going to be the winner. Any result a lottery.

No surprise afterwards that Adelaide United coach John Kosmina had no problem with the game proceeding. He had, he said, played in worse conditions in his time.

Maybe, but this league was touted as heralding a new era in a game which has been struggling to foot it with other codes across the Tasman.

There has been a determined effort to get the "shop window" right, but that certainly wasn't evident on Sunday night.

Conditions were bad enough for the ground staff to dispatch the teams away from the match pitch, which less than 24 hours earlier had hosted NPC rugby, to an outside ground to prepare.

At his post-match conference, NZ Knights coach John Adshead - and in no way decrying the result - said simply he would not begin to discuss it as a football match "because it wasn't".

No disagreement, surely, on that.

He pointed out that after 10 minutes when it was patently obvious the ball would not roll, that should have been enough for the referee to call a halt.

It is those very situations that can lead to dangerous play and serious injury.

To their credit, the players adapted, threw the coaching manual out with the rainwater and improvised to at least provide an acceptable spectacle in the monsoon-like conditions.

The coaches, through an intermediary, were informed at halftime that referee Peter O'Leary had the power to end it 10 minutes into the second half if conditions did not improve.

They didn't (the rain actually intensified). And he didn't (make the call).

From a point 90 minutes before kick-off, the referee is in absolute charge.

What he says goes. He must decide whether the conditions are safe and that the game can be played without causing injury.

O'Leary must have been in a minority at the ground convinced of that.

Only the professionalism of the players saved it from becoming a complete farce.

O'Leary was on a hiding to nothing.

His call to continue will, no doubt, be long debated. That no player - apart from a clash of heads - was injured adds weight to the argument it was fair enough to play on.

Reality again suggests differently.

The uncertainty was obvious.

Splashing around in ankle-deep water is not what players of this ability are coached to do. Their livelihood depends on results, not a bizarre lottery in unplayable conditions.

The debate will rage loud and long over Simon Yeo's sending-off in such farcical circumstances.

The ball was puddle-bound. As he charged, Yeo fell and slid - with his studs showing - but by the time he cannoned into Kristian Rees he had turned, the contact with his back not boots.

It might have looked bad and in normal circumstances would have almost certainly warranted red. But in this case Rees jumped straight up.

The only reaction, minimal apart from fourth official Neil Fox who was quickly sideline, was one of let's get on with it.

A yellow card at worse would have been sufficient. Others, including those who make such calls, saw it differently.

There seemed to be a fine line.

A later challenge by Knights goalkeeper Glen Moss - who turned in another accomplished effort in the testing conditions - could have been treated in a like manner by O'Leary.

Instead, nothing, other than a dropped ball to restart play.

The calls by the Knights for a goal when the ball appeared to be cleared from behind the goal-line; for a penalty when Sean Devine was clattered by Rees; and for a hand ball (and a penalty) when a defender cleared a corner by using his lower arm brought no response from the officials.

They were excused in the conditions.

Why not then Yeo in a match which should never have been played out if the standards the Football Federation of Australia are seeking were adhered to?