 Thursday, 26th Aug 2010 20:43 by Clive Whittingham There seems to be a theme developing here – referee Mark Haywood will be in charge of Derby v QPR on Saturday, just as he was for our 4-2 win here last year. Referee >>> Mark Haywood, West Yorkshire, five years on the league list, awarded QPR a last minute penalty in the 4-2 win at Pride Park last season, two previous QPR appointments. Assistants >>> Sian Massey (Coventry) and Peter Wright (Merseyside) Fourth Official >>> Russell Fletcher (Derbyshire) PreviouslySaturday, October 24, 2009, Derby County 2 QPR 4 It was Derby’s choice of tactics that drew first blood. Nine minutes into the game a bizarre piece of refereeing from our official for the day Mark Haywood presented the Rams with the opening goal. One of those long balls towards Hulse drew a free kick midway inside the QPR half even though Gorkss had seemed to do little wrong and Hulse had actually been able to release Lee Croft wide down the right for an obvious advantage. Derby were initially not happy to be awarded the free kick but when Robbie Savage took it quickly (no sendings off for that in this game apparently) he found Rangers asleep and Dickov was able to turn in space and fire home with Cerny’s goalkeeping questionable. Mr Haywood says in his refworld.com profile that he would like to be known as a “safe pair of hands” for the big games. Well I would not want him carrying the crockery the next time I move house. On the quarter hour Dickov crudely slid through the back of Damion Stewart on the halfway line long after the ball had gone – play on was waved as QPR kept possession but the referee did not so much as speak to Dickov once the game had stopped. Then he got in the way of a fine Robbie Savage pass that looked destined to release Teale down the left flank. Then after Buzsaky was clearly chopped down on the edge of the very edge of the box right in the centre of the goal he waved advantage on even though the ball was with Routledge out by the corner flag and came to nothing when just ten minutes earlier for the Derby goal he’d brought them back in identical circumstances and, even had he not, how can Wayne Routledge being penned in by the corner flag be more of an advantage than a free kick 18 yards from goal in the centre of the pitch? He was making my teeth itch by this stage as you can probably tell – this the referee who allowed Chris Eagles to punch in the only goal of the game when we were at Burnley last season you may recall. Undeterred, QPR kept going and kept playing their football. Twenty minutes in they were denied a shot at goal when Taarabt tricked his way down the left flank and teed Buzsaky up for as shot right on the edge of the box only for the Hungarian to be brilliantly tackled by the referee who may as well at this stage have slung a white shirt on and started kicking the ball for Derby as well. Mr Haywood attempted to even things up a bit by awarding Faurlin a soft free kick on the edge of the box that the Argentinean took himself and curled into the side netting with Bywater beaten and a good portion of the 600 travelling QPR fans celebrating what they believed was a goal to the considerable amusement of the large home crowd. I apologise for returning to the match official at this point, regular readers will know I don’t routinely slag off referees on here, but he was right in the thick of the action for the remaining 15 minutes of the half giving several perplexing decisions including two that lead to goals. Firstly Gary Teale was allowed to absolutely crunch into Wayne Routledge on the touchline in frustration at losing the ball without being booked, secondly Adel Taarabt was clearly fouled on the edge of the Derby box at the end of a fine move and no free kick was awarded, thirdly he then awarded Derby a free kick in their own box when it was clear that Connolly had simply lost his footing and Simpson had made no contact with him whatsoever. It was from this latest farce that Derby doubled their lead. The Rams, just for a change, punted the ball long and straight down the middle towards Hulse from the free kick. He won the flick on but the ball had too much pace on it and carried through to Cerny easily. Between Hulse and the QPR goalkeeper Dickov theatrically, and quite comically, threw himself to ground over the back of Damion Stewart. Contact was minimal, Dickov’s chances of getting to the ball were almost non existent, it was a blatant dive, and yet a free kick was awarded and Robbie Savage needed no second invitation to curl the ball over the wall and into the top corner off the post with nothing anybody on the QPR side could do to prevent it. A fine finish and just rewards for Savage’s eye catching first half performance but in context it was a complete joke. As was the goal that got QPR back into the game five minutes before half time. After waving away two nasty tackles on Buzsaky and Taarabt on the edge of the area Haywood then awarded one to the loaned Tottenham man when contact, while certainly there, was pretty meagre. Stephen Bywater did a horrific job of setting up a wall that was clearly too far to his right and missing at least one brick from the left side and that was all the encouragement Taarabt needed to curl the ball low around the defenders and into the bottom corner with one bounce. To compound a half of at times infuriating and frustrating refereeing Paul Dickov was then allowed, for the second time in the game, to hack a QPR player down with a tackle from behind without a free kick or card being shown. Alejandro Faurlin, excellent and composed at the heart of the QPR midfield again, was the victim this time. The game, which was heading for what would have been a very tense period of at least five added minutes, was killed as a contest in the final moments of normal time. A great tackle by Gorkss by his own corner flag denied Derby an attack and then Akos Buzsaky released Routledge at the other end with a miraculous 80 yard pass that split Derby clean in two. Routledge raced into the area where he was then bundled to the ground by Moxey for a clear penalty. Mr Haywood initially looked and seemed set to wave it away but was then advised by his linesman that it was indeed a spot kick and so QPR were belatedly given a chance to make it four for the third consecutive game, an opportunity gleefully seized by Buzsaky who rifled the penalty straight down the middle and into the roof of the net. Derby: Bywater 5, Stoor 6 (Livermore 62, 6), Connolly 6, Barker 7, Moxey 5, Croft 6, Savage 7, Hughes 6 (Pearson 68, 7), Teale 6, Dickov 6 (Davies 68, 7),Hulse 6 Subs Not Used: Deeney, Buxton, Hendrie, Mills Booked: Connolly Goals: Dickov 10 (assisted Savage), Savage 36 (free kick) QPR: Cerny 6, Ramage 7 (Leigertwood 60, 8), Gorkss 7, Stewart 7, Borrowdale 7, Routledge 8, Faurlin 8, Mahon 8, Buzsaky 8, Taarabt 8 (Agyemang 75, 6), Simpson 7 (Vine 75, 7) Subs Not Used: Heaton, Hall, Alberti, Ainsworth Goals: Taarabt 40 (free kick), Mahon 47 (assisted Routledge), Simpson 59 (assisted Buzsaky), Buzsaky 90 (penalty) Referee: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire) 4 Improved in the second half but I thought he was absolutely dire in the first. Free kicks, including two that led directly to goals, were given when they shouldn’t have been while other blatant ones were waved away. Tackles that should really have brought cards did not, advantage rule was applied when it shouldn’t have been and not when it should. In the first 45 I’m actually struggling to think of a decision he got right. Like I say he improved after the break, but he could scarcely have got any worse. Saturday, April 11, Burnley 1 QPR 0 In between those two chances Burnley forced a number of free kicks and corners with Chris Eagles incurring the wrath of the away fans with a series of theatrical falls around the penalty box. Jay Rodriguez, a QPR heartbreaker once already this year, headed one of the resulting set pieces over the top while Clarke Carlisle did likewise. When Eagles tried his luck with a dive in the penalty area it was rightly waved away by referee Mark Haywood but no yellow card was shown when it really should have been. If it was inevitable that QPR would lose this game after the week they have had then it was equally sure that the decisive goal would come from a set piece. Sure enough, four minutes into the second half, Rangers fell behind to a goal that was both poor defensively and highly controversial. A corner by Blake was met powerfully by Clarke Carlisle up from the back, eight yards out dead centre of the goal, and the ball was deflected past Radek Cerny by Chris Eagles with his arm from all of a foot away from the goal. One Devon White would have been proud of. Cerny was incandescent and chased referee Mark Haywood down the pitch to protest against the award of the goal to no avail. How ironic that Haywood says in his profile on refworld.com that he’d like to be seen as “a safe pair of hands.” Burnley: Jensen 7, Williams 6, Carlisle 8, Caldwell 7, Kalvenes 6, Elliott 7, Alexander 7, McCann 7, Blake 7 (Gudjonsson 79, -), Eagles 7 (McDonald 89, -), Rodriguez 7 (Paterson 86, -) Subs Not Used: Penny, Duff Booked: Kalvenes (foul) Goals: Eagles 49 (assisted Carlisle) QPR: Cerny 7, Ramage 6, Gorkss 7, Connolly 7, Delaney 6, Routledge 6, Leigertwood 4, Ephraim 6 (Lopez 71, 6), Taarabt 6, Di Carmine 6 (Cook 54, 6), Vine 6 (Alberti 84, -) Subs Not Used: Mahon, Stewart Referee: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire) 5 Got the big decision wrong for me, the goal should have been disallowed. Also fell for quite a bit of Eagles’ play acting in the first half and should have booked him for diving after waving away his theatrical penalty appeal. StatsThis will be Mark Haywood’s fifth game of the season already, but his first in the Championship. So far he has shown eight yellow cards and no reds in four appointments. He was in charge of Swansea’s 2-1 win at Tranmere in the League Cup during the week. Last season he showed 76 yellows and three reds in 35 matches – 2.171 bookings a game. His biggest haul in a single match was seven yellows as Preston beat Nottingham Forest in the Championship in March. Nine of those matches were in the Championship, including our win at Derby, in which he booked 22 and sent two off. His only other previous Derby appointment was a 1-1 home draw with Cardiff in September 2008. Other Listings:Championship >>> Premiership referee Lee Mason is down in the Championship for a potentially spicy encounter between Doncaster and Hull City. League Two >>> Mark Halsey, Premiership referee and QPR fan, continues his comeback from throat cancer with a fixture at the Crown Ground between Accrington and Stevenage. 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