While Sunday's A-League Preliminary Final was a spectacular showcase featuring constant drama and intrigue, the questions must be asked about the impact of key decisions made by referee Peter Green during an absorbing 120 minutes at EnergyAustralia Stadium.
In any game where there are three penalties given, there has to be some comment about the standard of refereeing. There will be those who say that justice was served in the end, and that the best team prevailed on the night, but the impact of Green's decision to award a penalty in the 92nd minute to Queensland could have major consequences on next week's Grand Final.
Consider the fact that Central Coast has earned the advantage of having the week off, and then consider the fact that the Jets have now played 240 minutes of football in two weeks. The extra 30 minutes played out on Sunday, while they ultimately achieved the just result, could prove decisive when the only two regional teams in the A-League do battle for the title of national champions.
It's never terribly helpful to personalise refereeing decisions, and attribute blame for a result on the decisions of one man. Football is a game where at any one time there are 23 men making decisions out on the field, each of which can affect the result in different ways. That's why coaches ensure that at the most crucial moments, they have the men out there equipped to make the best decisions.
The FFA would have loved to have had its best man out there making the decisions when it counted on Sunday. Hey, it would have even been happy to settle for second best. But Matthew Breeze and Mark Shield, Australia's two best referees by an absolute mile, were not available for this match. They have been in the Canary Islands doing a FIFA accredited course as part of their international training.
So while the Australian game will be all the better in the long run for having these two men so dutifully attended by FIFA, in the short-term we were left with the third best option.
For much of the preceding 90 minutes, Peter Green had done a very good job. There was a close offside call, which wasn't his decision, and a couple of yellow cards. But when the key decision was there to be made, whether Simon Lynch was fouled in the box or not, he bowed to the moment and paid a penalty that 10 minutes earlier he would probably have waved away. While it paved the way for a classic extra-time face-off, it subjected to Newcastle something they didn't deserve - 30 extra minutes of football.
It was to Gary Van Egmond men's credit that they re-doubled their efforts and chased the winner in extra-time. The young fresh legs of Jin Hyung Song versus the old battered and exhausted body of Sasa Ognenovski was not a match-up that was going to favour the Roar. The big defender stuck a leg out, Song made the most of the contact, much as Lynch had shortly before, and again Green pointed to the spot.
The sense of outrage at that dubious decision was quelled be the fact that this was the square-up. The notion that even subconsciously, a referee is more likely to give a decision to a team based on making a previous mistake against that team goes against every bone in an official's body. But appearances are all important, and to most, if not all, it appeared that one bad call had cancelled out the other.
Newcastle deservedly took a stranglehold on the game when Tarek Elrich smashed home the Jets' third. But Green's day wasn't finished. Two minutes from time, Queensland 'earned' another penalty when Michael Zullo and Elrich collided. This was probably the closest of the lot, but was at best 50-50. The Roar couldn't pull a third goal back and bowed out of the finals race. It will no doubt be Green's final game of the season as well.
As mentioned before, Green wasn't alone in making errors out on the field. While it was fantastic end to end football, both defences and midfield made mistakes early on, which should have been punished if not for more mistakes in front of goals.
And the greatest misjudgement of them all came from the man best equipped to make good decisions.
Craig Moore, who had earlier deservedly earned a booking for hacking at Joel Griffiths, was utterly crude with his elbow on the Jets striker in extra-time. Green showed red, Moore left the pitch and his side crashed out with little to show for a strong campaign.
That's what makes finals football such an inimitable part of Australian sporting culture. Under the pressure cooker of finals, the true mettle of all is tested and the toughest emerges as the best. On this occasion, Moore and Green have much to reflect on after buckling under the spotlight.