This VAR stuff is utter ********.
Indeed.Yeah, it's meant for howlers. That's the decision they've made so they need to apply that (some may think it should be applied differently, but that's life). Hence why eg. the Ronaldo pen last night, where some would argue pen and some would argue dive, shouldn't have been touched by VAR either way imo. But they've torpedoed that with the decision with the first pen today.