In an office job, a Career-Limiting Move (CLM) involves getting drunk at the Christmas party and xeroxing your bits. In a football-officiating job, it's missing a blatant handball in the box. Kind of like missing this one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW8KbXY9Gjg, which took place about 15 minutes into the Westfield Matildas' do-or-die Women's World Cup match against Equatorial Guinea.

It's hard to know what to write about that handball because I am (and I suspect everyone back in Australia are too) still shaking my head over it. It's simply, to borrow from The Princess Bride, inconceivable.

I tend to consider handballs those split-second, hard-to-see incidents were hands accidentally brush against a rebounding ball or arms are stuck out, Hand-of-God-like, to prevent a goalward-bound shot from going in.

But this? This was more than a handball. It was an entirely visible, prolonged scooping up, holding, and handling of the in-play ball after it had rebounded from the upright. Right after striker Leena Khamis had kicked it and other Australian players were looking to finish the shot. There was nothing split-second, invisible, or accidental about this one. I think a 'ball handle' is more apt description than 'handball'.

While missing that was an enormous mistake on the referee's part, I did actually feel very sorry for her. We all have our bad days in the office. Hers simply played out live and with the unfortunate benefit of video replays, social media analysis, internet archives, and thousands upon thousands of witnesses.

But where was her back up? What are the assistant referees mic'd up for if not to give the referee the heads-up when they've missed something? Often this technology is called into play for off-the-ball incidents. Perhaps that's what's surprised us the most—this was a live, in-the-box, rebounding-shot-on-goal play. If the referee and her assistants weren't watching the ball in that very instant, what on earth were they?

Much as we expect them to be robots of inscrutable precision, referees are human. No one will be more upset about missing that handled ball than the referee. And, as it's likely that CLM means she won't be adjudicating another Women's World Cup match (at least not this event, anyway), she'll have plenty of time to rue it.

Some fans on Twitter asked if it was the worst World Cup handball anyone had ever seen. Others were asking if a referee has ever been subbed at half time. Still others noted that we'd thought wrong assuming the controversy surrounding Equatorial Guinea would be contained to the 'men' they were supposed to have fielded, the Brazilian origins of some seven of their players, and their disqualification from the Olympics following the revelation that they fielded an illegal player. Really, how much controversy can one team court?!

Truthfully, though, what concerned me most was not the handled ball or off-pitch dramas, but the fact that the referee didn't have control of the game. The crunching, two-footed tackles the Equatorial Guineans exacted on our players left me wincing, and I genuinely feared we wouldn't get through the match without a serious injury.

When Sally Shipard went down after a tackle that saw her complete a 360-degree turn while her boot was stationary and dug-in on the ground, I was worried she'd done either or both her ankle and her knee.

Lisa De Vanna, who broke her ankle in the Asian Cup, was cleaned up scythe-like within 30 seconds of subbing on to the pitch. The Equatorial Guineans probably regret that tactic, though: when De Vanna gets mad, she gets even, and her goal and player-of-the-match award are testament to that.

I can live with a missed (albeit entirely unfathomable, bloopers-reel-worthy) handled ball, but the in ability to reign in dangerous plays not so much. Tackles that earned no card or just a yellow would likely have arguably earned an Australian a straight red. In fact, as one fan tweeted: why is it that Australia always gets screwed in the World Cup?

It didn't quite come to that because the never-say-die Westfield Matildas didn't let it, and for that I'm both incredibly grateful and proud. Their goal for getting out of the group stage has been to be in control of their own destiny.

That showed in the first half of the first game they played against athletic powerhouses Brazil, who they very nearly took (scoreline aside, I personally consider that match a win). That also showed in the way they took the game to the Equatorial Guineans from the first whistle and in spite of interesting refereeing decisions, bruising encounters, and handled balls.

A win or draw against Norway will see the Westfield Matildas finish second in the group and play through. It's fair to say that after that CLM (or rather those CLMs, plural), the referee's World Cup is over.

Three questions remain for me. First: What were the referee and her assistant watching if not the ball? Second: Does anyone know of a handled ball incident that exceeded the sheer bizarreness and blatant-ness of this one? And third: Can a referee come back from a CLM like that?