Callum Davidson has welcomed the news of St Johnstone’s role ushering in the new era of VAR to the Scottish Premiership.
However, the Perth boss hopes the system won’t require the lengthy bedding-in process hinted at by SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell.
Saints and Hibernian will become the first top flight clubs to play in a game featuring video assistant refereeing next Friday night at Easter Road.
The entire following day’s Premiership card will see VAR fully rolled out.
SFA boss Maxwell disclosed earlier in the week that colleagues in other European leagues had cautioned the first three months could prove ‘horrendous’.
But Davidson stressed the odd teething problem as officials get used to the system shouldn’t compromise getting the big calls correct straight away.
“I am hoping it will be quicker than that,” said Davidson of Maxwell’s ‘three months’ estimate.
“It might take a little bit of time to come to the decision and that’s fine. But I think you want the right decisions.
“Let’s hope the decisions are made correctly straight away when we bring it in – because that’s why VAR is there. To help referees make the correct decisions.
“We don’t want two or three months of ‘oh, we’re not sure’ or inconsistency. We want the decisions pretty consistent from day one.
“We’ll be the first game now; we’ve obviously been waiting for it to happen for a while.
“Let’s hope it can run as smoothly as possible and that it’s beneficial to the league and our referees.”
Handball incidents
Davidson admits there are positives and negatives of implementing the system in Scotland, as noted watching VAR operate in major leagues and tournaments around the continent.
In particular, he believes handball incidents highlighted by VAR have become notoriously difficult for refs to deal with.
“We’ve had the refs in here talking to us and we’ve asked them questions about it,” said Davidson.
“It’s funny because, when the refs asked us if what they’ve shown is a foul or not, half the room says it was and the other half say it wasn’t. You’ll always have that debate in football.
“There’s debate on handball, ‘ball to hand’ or whether it was in an ‘unnatural’ position.
“For me, the handball rule is still a contentious one to get right. I’m just hoping for the big decisions being right on the pitch, not the little things, just the big ones.
“Whether it’s offside or not will hopefully be a lot clearer. That’s what you’re looking for.
“From what I’ve seen, the flow of the game can be different. Sometimes it takes away from that euphoria, the enjoyment of scoring.
“Now you’ve sometimes a couple of minutes to see if it’s been ruled off. That’s one of the down sides.
“But for a manager, hopefully we won’t need to argue with the fourth official to get explanations.
“They’ll be on VAR, they’ll be clear and made from video rather than human eye.”
Fitness update
Meanwhile, midfielder Murray Davidson is out until after the World Cup following ankle surgery.
“Murray’s had little bit of fragments of his bone removed and cleaned up so all good,” reported Davidson.
“It was needed. He wasn’t quite right so we went down that route and it was the correct decision.”
David Wotherspoon, Tony Gallacher and Daniel Phillips all got through 90 minutes of a bounce game on Tuesday unscathed to stay in contention for Saturday’s match at Livingston.
Adam Montgomery could return after missing two matches with a broken pinkie toe.
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