Australian Jarred Gillett, newly promoted to the Premier League list this season, is in charge of QPR’s short trip to Peterborough on Saturday.

Referee >>> Jarred Gillett (Queensland)

Assistants >>> Shaun Hudson (Tyne and Wear) and Richard Wild (Rochdale)

Fourth Official >>> Gavin Ward (Surrey)

History

Swansea 0 QPR 1, Tuesday April 20, 2021, Championship

You could, unkindly, say it was QPR’s sort of game. None of the tips from the cheat sheet — let our back three have it but press aggressively when we move it into midfield, crowd the middle of the pitch, target and push the wing backs backwards — that we’d seen Forest, Derby and Huddersfield do to us, all far worse teams than Swansea in theory, were in evidence here. The space the home team afforded us to pass through midfield was extraordinary, only one horrible Fulton tackle on Dickie for which he received a thick yellow card suggested any real resistance at all. It’s also true that Rangers do lack any sort of real pace to isolate and expose teams, and rely on picking and tricking their way through instead — Dickie’s lack of acceleration, which will probably keep him from being the level of centre back every other one of his attributes says he could be, was exposed by Routledge out in the deep waters of the right wing and he too was booked for the corrective measures.

Swansea: Woodman 6; Naughton 6, Bennett 6, Guehi 6; Roberts 5, Smith 6, Fulton 5 (Dhanda 75, 5), Grimes 5, Bidwell 5; Routledge 5 (Cullen 71, 6), Lowe 7 (Whittaker 86, -)

Subs Not Used: Manning, Hourihane, Hamer, Cooper, Cabango, Latibeaudiere (thank the God of match reporters he didn’t come on)

Bookings: Fulton 23 (foul)

QPR: Lumley 7; Dickie 7, Ball 6, Barbet 7; Kakay 5 (Adomah 74, 7), Thomas 7 (Austin 67, 6), Johansen 7, Chair 7 (Field 79, 6), Hämäläinen 7; Willock 8, Dykes 7

Subs not used: Kane, Bonne, Bettache, Walsh, Duke-McKenna

Goals: Dykes 89 (assisted Adomah)

Bookings: Dickie 55 (foul), Austin 85 (foul), Hämäläinen 90+2 (delaying the restart), Lumley 90+4 (taking the piss)

Referee — Jarred Gillett (Queensland) 8 Couple of moments of fussiness we could have done without, and actually he was/is so on top of the play at this level that on more than one occasion he rather got in the way of a QPR move through midfield, but he’s clearly a Premier League referee ready to go this bloke and he’s been by far and away the best we’ve had this season. Correct with all cards and big calls.

QPR 3 Millwall 2, Wednesday March 17, 2021, Championship

QPR: Dieng 7; Dickie 6, De Wijs 6, Barbet 6; Kane 4 (Adomah 76, 6), Cameron 4 (Field 70, 6), Johansen 7, Willock 6 (Chair 70, 7), Wallace 7; Austin 6 (Bonne 79, 6), Dykes 7 (Ball 90+1, -)

Subs not used: Lumley, Kakay, Hämäläinen, Thomas

Goals: Austin 51 (assisted Cameron), Johansen 67 (assisted Wallace), De Wijs 86 (assisted Chair)

Bookings: De Wijs 56 (foul), Johansen 88 (foul)

Millwall: Bialkowski 6; Hutchinson 5, Pearce 5 (Burey 89, -), Cooper 6; Romeo 7, Woods 6 (Mitchell 77, 6), Evans 6 (Bradshaw 89, -), Thompson 6 (Williams 77, 6), Malone 6; Wallace 7, Bennett 6 (Bovarsson 77, 5)

Subs not used: Fielding, M Wallace, Ferguson, McNamara

Goals: Wallace 6 (assisted Woods), Bennett 39 (assisted Cooper)

Referee — Jarred Gillett (Queensland) 7 A lot to like about this referee, though I thought he was incredibly generous not to book Bennett for a horrible tackle eight minutes into the game — basically seemed to let him off because it was a bit early in the game but it wasn’t a good one at all.

Watford 1 QPR 2, Monday February 1, 2021, Championship

Immensely frustrating, therefore, that Rangers should then immediately master their own downfall with a series of basic errors from senior players. Ball went first, laying a relatively simple pass up woefully short of Barbet forcing the Frenchman to try and retrieve the situation with a string of his favourite wild sliding tackles. There were two chances for Lee Wallace to clear the resulting corner, the first a free header with time to pick a spot which he directed straight into traffic, the second a ball away down the line or into the main stand on his favoured foot which he delayed long enough for Cleverley to block it back into a problematic area. Geoff Cameron, having a breather on the perimeter track, then tried to rectify all of this by haring into a needless, clumsy tackle on Sarr. You don’t need a referee as good as Jarred Gillett obviously is to spot that, I think even Keith Stroud could have managed it, and Priam King of Troy dispatched the penalty kick in his usual manner, stopping only to run past Seny Dieng and call him a cunt on his exit route. You’re playing with the real men now children. The five-step approach was as far as Deeney had run all game.

Watford: Bachmann 6; Navarro 5, Troost-Ekong 6, Sierralta 6, Ngakia 5 (Wilmot 83, -); Sarr 5, Cleverley 6, Chalobah 5 (Sinckernagel 83, -), Hughes 5 (Sema 67, 7); Deeney 5, Pedro 5 (Gray 67, 5)

Subs not used: Cathcart, Elliot, Dalby, Barrett, Hungbo (alright mate don’t show off)

Goals: Deeney 52 (penalty, won Sarr)

Bookings: Sierralta 54 (deliberate handball), Navarro 90+3 (foul)

QPR: Dieng 7; Dickie 7, Cameron 5, Barbet 7; Kane 7, Ball 6, Johansen 7 (Willock 67, 7), Chair 6 (Adomah 82, -), Wallace 5; Bonne 5 (Thomas 89, -), Austin 6 (Kelman 82, -)

Subs not used: Lumley, Kakay, Hämäläinen, Bettache

Goals: Austin 73 (assisted Willock), Adomah 90 (assisted Kane)

Bookings: Wallace 33 (foul)

Referee — Jarred Gillett (Gold Coast) 8 Very good again, with all big decisions correct, and the game calmly and effectively managed. Rather generous on a couple of occasions with his yellow card, which you’d ordinarily expect to see for Cameron’s tackle for the penalty, and Willock’s late cynical foul to disrupt a last-minute attack, and Austin’s deliberate foul on the Watford keeper to stop him launching a first half counter. But he’s been the best referee we’ve had this season in both his games so far.

Millwall 1 QPR 1, Tuesday December 8, 2020, Championship

It was, to this point, a game for the centre backs: Rob Dickie standing up well to everything you expect when you go to play at The Den; Millwall’s three of Hutchinson, Pearce and Cooper almost entirely untroubled by Lyndon Dykes’ ongoing toil. By half time, an argument/constructive discussion about whether the radiators should be on three or four at the moment had broken out back at base. Ball’s embarrassingly shambolic dive for a penalty, rightly carded by Australian referee Jarred Gillett, rather summed it all up.

Millwall: Bialkowski 7; Hutchinson 6, Pearce 6 (Bodvarsson 66, 7), Cooper 7; Romeo 8, Woods 6, Williams 6 (Smith 64, 6), Malone 6; Wallace 6 (Burey 89, -), Bennett 6 (Leonard 64, 6), Parrott 6 (Bradshaw 74, 6)

Subs not used: Fielding, Wallace, Thompson, Ferguson

Goals: Bodvarsson 70 (assisted Wallace)

QPR: Dieng 7; Kakay 6, Dickie 7, Barbet 6, Hämäläinen 6; Ball 5, Cameron 6; Osayi-Samuel 6, Carroll 7 (Thomas 77, 4), Chair 8 (Bonne 77, 5); Dykes 5

Subs not used: Kane, Willock, Masterson, Bettache, Kelman, Kelly, Adomah

Goals: Chair 53 (assisted Carroll)

Bookings: Ball 16 (diving) Barbet 75 (foul), Bonne 90+1 (foul)

Referee — Jarred Gillett (Gold Coast) 8 Controlled a potentially difficult match very well, with few errors and the big decisions correct. Has a bit of a reputation as a card happy official but only showed three here, all justified, and controlled the game in an unfussy, unobtrusive manner.

Stats

Jarred Gillett, from the Gold Coast in Australia, moved from his homeland’s A League to join the EFL list towards the end of the 2018/19 season. He was given a game in each of League Two, One and the Championship to start with, making a Championship debut at Blackburn 2-2 Swansea. The eight cards he showed at Fleetwood 0-0 Bristol Rovers was in keeping with prolific form in Australia over the previous season — he’d already booked 66 (3.88) and sent four off in the 17 games he’d done at home that year. In 2017/18 he booked 85 (4.04) and sent four off in 21 and the year before he booked a whopping 96 (5.64) and sent seven off in just 17 matches.

The 2019/20 campaign was his first full on in England and he booked 95 (3.27) and sent two off in 29 outings with a couple of eight-card hauls the most in a single game. Last season he finished on 103 yellows (3.21) and three reds in 32 games, topped off by six yellows and a red in Bournemouth’s shameless attempt to shithouse their way through the play-off semi-final second leg at Brentford.

Promoted to the Premier League list for this season he’s made his top flight debut in Watford’s 1-1 draw at home to Newcastle, with seven yellows and a controversial VAR disallowed goal for Josh King thrown into the bargain. He refereed Peterborough’s 3-0 home win against Birmingham sending off the visitors’ Gary Gardner after an hour. He has booked 14 and sent one off in four appointments so far.

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

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