Simon Thomas
17-03-08, 12:03
I had a great match at noon last Saturday - Southampton University Medical Students v The Doctors (the Old Boys). Open, fast, good standard of play (level 8 ish) and a quite large crowd. A 'friendly' that reminded me of how things used to be before we had Leagues.
Such matches can have a spread of management challenges from the funny to the niggle, and a need to balance a firm hand at times with letting it flow. It seems I got it about right as all enjoyed themselves in a close match (30-27 to Old Boys), that was full on physically.
One incident was a first for me - students wing dives over in corner with doctors fullback and wing both tackling him, flag pole and players go everywhere. I am 15 yards behind (attack started on half way line !) and in-field so couldn't see the ball grounded through the bodies and had doubts if ball was grounded before student wing's leg hits corner flag.
I am about to award touch in goal and so 22 m drop out when student skipper points at spectator 10m away with video-cam. Doctors' skipper consulted and surprisingly agrees we should have a look, so I do Time Off sign and TMO square (for one and only time in my ref's career I suspect), call water on for the teams and the three of us watch play-backs a few times.
We all agreed that defender's leg hit corner flag not attacker's, and so there was no touch/touch-in-goal issues. Then it became clear that fullback's smother tackle had got his arms and hands under ball and so no grounding took place. But impossible to see from where I was following in, and we needed freeze frame to be sure anyway.
So off we went to 5m attacking scrum, no 8 pickup and drive, quick ball and scrum half dived over for try.
Such matches can have a spread of management challenges from the funny to the niggle, and a need to balance a firm hand at times with letting it flow. It seems I got it about right as all enjoyed themselves in a close match (30-27 to Old Boys), that was full on physically.
One incident was a first for me - students wing dives over in corner with doctors fullback and wing both tackling him, flag pole and players go everywhere. I am 15 yards behind (attack started on half way line !) and in-field so couldn't see the ball grounded through the bodies and had doubts if ball was grounded before student wing's leg hits corner flag.
I am about to award touch in goal and so 22 m drop out when student skipper points at spectator 10m away with video-cam. Doctors' skipper consulted and surprisingly agrees we should have a look, so I do Time Off sign and TMO square (for one and only time in my ref's career I suspect), call water on for the teams and the three of us watch play-backs a few times.
We all agreed that defender's leg hit corner flag not attacker's, and so there was no touch/touch-in-goal issues. Then it became clear that fullback's smother tackle had got his arms and hands under ball and so no grounding took place. But impossible to see from where I was following in, and we needed freeze frame to be sure anyway.
So off we went to 5m attacking scrum, no 8 pickup and drive, quick ball and scrum half dived over for try.