Shirt pulls should be pulled up by VAR at every turn according to a former ref - but David Dickinson got his red card call wrong in Rangers' stroll at Livingston.
The Light Blues got ahead through a James Tavernier penalty, when James Penrice was deemed to have impeded Alfredo Morelos with a shirt pull. Stephane Omeonga was then sent off with the game stuck at 1-0 for colliding with Kemar Roofe, and Tavernier stepped up again to score from a free-kick, Michael Beale's side going on to win by 3 when their Jamaican international prodded the ball home before full-time.
Speaking to BBC Scotland, Dougal has heaped praise on referee David Dickinson and VAR - which beckoned the official over for a look at Penrice's grab - for handing a penalty to Michael Beale's team. It's not something he feels he could have given in his day though, with a showdown between this weekend's Viaplay Cup final competitors Celtic and Rangers highlighted as a gateway to conspiracy theories. Dougal said: "Is that lazy defending? You might argue that he isn't really going to win the ball, most people would say that, but you are told to challenge for the ball. He might sclaff it and it might fall to one of the Rangers players, so he has impeded him with some kind of challenge.
"I would like to see more of these incidents awarded as penalty kicks, or free-kicks for the defending team. Shirt pulling back in the day when I was a referee without VAR, then it was much harder to give these. Because if you caught one, just take it as an Old Firm game, if you've caught one at missed one end and not at the other end, you're accused of inconsistency and bias. Now we have VAR, most of these shirt pulls should be caught and I hope we see more of this.
"I am accused of being a referee sympathiser and making excuses for them. But if that was a referee's mistake that gave a penalty and it shouldn't have been, it would be headlines. It's almost accepted that it's ok that players make mistakes but not referees. So yes, I am a referee apologist when it comes to certain things."
Where he draws the line in defence of Dickinson is with the red card. He says Omeonga's second yellow had to be more believable, but a lack of a clear error makes it hard to go against his call.
Dougal claimed: "Do I think it's a yellow card offence? No, not to lead to a red card, some people might find that strange.
"There are yellow cards, but if you're going to give a second yellow card, it's got to be believable, sellable. One of the problems here is it is not a clear and obvious error. If referees had to go across every time there's a second yellow card just to make sure they're happy, that would give more VAR intervention. But I do think in a situation like that you would go and have a wee look.
"It feels soft but the referee will learn from that. He might watch that again and might be happy with it, so that's where the subjectivity comes in."
