PS or not?

 The Field Hockey Forum is the resource for players, coaches and umpires of Field Hockey. Join FHF now to have full access to all that we have to offer! Don't be satisfied with lurking when you can interact with thousands of other FHF’rs, take part in Competitions, win Prizes, download Coaching Papers, discover our vast Photo library and get rid of this message - Register Now!

[hotrod]

Hi

First time post.

I have been playing the game for over 30 years and umpire my son's U15 grade regularly and had the joy of doing Vets on the WE.  For some reason I even have a copy of the rules and I read them often.

U15's is a joy to umpire.  No back chat and they respect their elders.

Vets on the other hand is the complete opposite.  I'm 42 and just a wipper snapper to them.

In the Vets game the following two situations occurred:

In a PC the attacker stopped the initial pass back outside the circle with a defender running onto him.  The attacker pushes the ball back into the circle with the intention of passing the defender to take a shot on a congested goal mouth.  The ball strikes the trailing foot of the defender and it looks very close to an intentional kick but could as well has been just the momentum of the trailing foot just giving it a good kick.  I signaled another PC as I was not convinced the kick was deliberate.  Predictably one team went nuts for a PS.

In the ensuring PC the first shot was stopped by the keeper who then went to ground with a scrimmage on the PS spot.  Behind the keeper was a defender about 2m away with another defender on the goal line with an attacker right next to him.  An attacker in the scrimmage has a slap shot at goal that goes over the keeper towards goal that strikes the defender 2m behind the keeper and about the same distance from the shot in the chest.  The defender 2m behind the keeper did not play the ball as he did not see the shot come and he went to ground injured.  I call a FHD for dangerous play.  Again I was not popular as they wanted another PS.  In this case I thought that it was not a certain goal given the other defender on the goal line so it could not be a PS.  I did not believe it was a PC either as the ball was raised from 2m away with little if any prior opportunity to play the ball by the defender and it was dangerous, hence FHD.

Interested on others thoughts.

Ciao............

[keely]

You clearly know what the pertinent rules are. Both were subjective judgment calls that require every bit of information you receive by being the umpire there on that pitch at that particular moment. I'm sure none of us will have anything else to offer other than - "you had to be there".

[Ridge]

if you felt confident with your decision when it comes to danger on a shot then you are correct. many times people will post questions like this pertaining to danger and whether or not it is a PS or not. some will say yes, others will say no. The danger debate continues all over this forum. i think you answered the question yourself and applied the rules correctly. it wasn't a for sure goal, there was a defender behind him yet and with the distance between the shooter and the defender that was hit, it was dangerous. i think you were right.

your first scenario sounded well called too. i had a situation called against me a few years ago. i was rushing on a corner and everything happened closely to how you described. it looked like i kicked the ball on purpose because of how far the ball went but it was just because i was running full speed. they called a PS. but i think your decision was better.

[redumpire]

As Keely said, "you had to be there" to be absolutely sure, but from your description - and the clear logic that you have applied to both scenarios - I would say that it sounds very much as if you got both decisions right.

[Goalie64]

hotrod - welcome.
Both calls sound fine to me from your descriptions (taking YHTBT as a given).

In the first situation, unless you are sure (just like you have to be sure an attacker is "putting the ball on a foot" in order to try and win a PC) the defender's foot was deliberate I'd say you have to give a second PC. It may well be the second umpire is in a better position to see the incident, so have a look at them. Nothing wrong with either of you stopping time and having a quick chat.

In the second (as I read it) we have attacker with ball and grounded keeper, both pretty much on the P spot, and defender 1 being 2m behind the keeper. Given that, if the ball is raised to chest height in such a short distance, I think I too would be inclined to give FHD. Might I guess one of the attackers would have said "but it was a shot on goal umps!"

[justin]

You applied good logic and your judgment to the decisions...who can (justifiably) say "You Were Wrong?"

Some might say "I'd have given(something different)" but they were your 2 'judgment calls', made in a fraction of a second...be happy with them

[hotrod]

Just bumping this for another question.

In these circumstances, would it be out of the question calling across the other ump to get his opinion on the matter given the ramifications of a call either way???

He might have had a different view etc,?

[jtsoldier]

I'm assuming you are referring to the no-PS but PC-instead call?

In conferring, I guess you really have to weigh up the effect it will have on the players.
On one hand, you can confer and the decision will be correct when you restart play. Either a PC or PS will be given.
The positioning of the other umpire for play inside your circle is such that it is extremely unlikely that they can do anything but reinforce the interpretation of the rules (which you obviously are already familiar with). If I was your colleague on the night, I would have to be absolutely certain before I would undermine the remaining confidence the players have in you and especially before I undermined your confidence in your own ability.

On conferring - my belief is that you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Explaining your call should be as far as it goes on appeals and on dissent it shouldn't even go that far. Genuinely missing something is entirely different, and should be based on the importance of the perceived missed call and the likelihood of it actually occuring, but that wasn't the case here - you saw what happened, applied the rules and interpretations, and the players disagreed.

Of course, even that doesn't work out in every situation. An umpire missed something in the weekend - a hit that came in without travelling 5 metres - and that didn't go so well. The game deteriorated following that one call - it just so happened that there was an international umpire playing, and he asked (politely even) about the ball not travelling 5 before it went into the circle. Soon as the umpire stopped time to confer, a wave of blatant dissent ("don't you know the rules, ump?") started from the crowd, spread to the players, and the game went downhill. A yellowcard and three greens later I would bet the umpires were very pleased to be blowing full-time.

Then there is the opposing, where conferring may have been a better call, but it wasn't done. When I umpired a bunch of those angry vet players here, I came to (and currently maintain) that in my situation, conferring with the other umpire, though it might've led to greater consistency, would've left me wide open to ongoing dissent (that is another topic entirely, which I should have dealt with).

By the way, if your concern at being 42 was that you was a whippersnapper, imagine myself and my colleague on that night - I am 19, and if she is older, it isn't by much (fortunately she has many more seasons of umpiring experience than I!).

[Diligent]

A more positive view on conferring is that, done well, it supports the impression of a solid umpiring team. But it does only work for stuff on the far side of the circle, where the engaged umpire has a reasonable excuse for being unsighted.

Often a look across for a nod of approval and thumbs-up from your partner is enough.

Other times when you look, they clearly have something to say about it, so stop time and meet - not too close to players. But their job is to explain what they saw, and remind you of rules - it must be the engaged umpire's decision. Of course this does assume they are watching, and not taking a break while play was up the other end.

A chat with your colleague can be very useful to buy time and save face - by the time you meet you have already decided to confirm or reverse the decision - and you simply ask your partner to nod and make a show of agreeing.

[Neo]

One of the down sides of the "shot on goal" scenario is that many forwards just expect that every ball that is travelling towards the goal mouth and intercepted by something else than a stick is automatically a PS.  Hotrod you outlined it well in your first post - don't forget that these wily old vets will try and con you into a PS whenever they can too!

cheers (& welcome)