This weeks man in the middle - Mike Riley
Earlier in the week, Bruce and ex ref Winters had traded insults following Winter's allegation that Savage was "a coward". Winter went on to say that Savage should get a 3 match ban for his attack on Mellberg. The FA thought otherwise. Bruce branded Winter a "pratt" with the personality of a bag of chips.
I wondered if Bruce's words were still ringing in Rileys' ears when, in the first couple of minutes of the game, Dunn was tripped in the penalty area by Haas. Dunn decided to carry on rather than go to ground and Riley let the incident pass. Minutes later, former BCFC player, Darren Purse, halted Morrison's goal bound progress by grabbing his shirt. This time the ref pointed to the spot. Purse was lucky to escape a booking.
Derbies can be quite physical and West Brom had no qualms about tripping kicking and elbowing. That's not to say that Blues were any angels. Tebily stopped play in the opening seconds with a very late tackle on Greening.
Koumas and Savage were the centre of attention when Koumas caught Savage with a late tackle from behind. Tempers flared and Riley stepped in to prevent another local derby handbag swinging incident. Koumas saw yellow.
Lazaridis appeared to get chopped in half by Haas. Just before half time, Greening joined the long list of booked Albion players after a savage tackle on Robbie.
Dunn had been terrorising the Albion midfield and defence, so it was no surprise when Gaardsoe got a yellow as frustration began to show, Riley was only too happy to point to varous places on the pitch where the defender had fouled Dunn.
Riley should have awarded Blues a penalty for the foul on Dunn, Purse should have at least been booked for his foul on Morrison and Haas should have seen red for his attack on Lazaridis. But, Riley seemed keen not to reduce Albion to 10 men. Several times he took a player to one side and told them to keep it calm. Free kicks were allowed to be taken quickly and overall the game flowed quite well.
Booked: Greening, Haas, Gaardsoe, Koumas (all for unsporting behaviour)
This weeks rating: 7/10