The Play
It rears its ugly head again. I was talking to Tully about it on Facebook (where he also posted it) and he said he put it up there because he was sick and tired of all the C1 talk and blah blah blah so he wanted to shake things up. Reasonable I guess.
For those of you who feel you are missing out you can find the discussion here. Hopefully I grabbed the google groups link properly. I also covered this play ad nauseum over here during my early blogging days. I first caught up with the latest rendition of this thread about 8 comments in. I called Jim who of course had already noticed and we reflected on the whole fracas again. I debated whether to join in with a response on rsd, but I've been there and done that, even posting to Eurodisc back in the day after I started getting slammed there (I'm sure someone can dig up a link to that discussion) even to the point that I heard on the grapevine that Anders was all offended that I had posted something in 'his' backyard. Oh well. You can't make everyone happy.
I guess the reason I'm even addressing this at all is not to defend myself per se, although I don't have to, regardless of snide comments from types like Wagenwheel, who are advocates of refs of course and are more than happy to use this as a soapbox. I will start with observers and maybe move to refs. At nationals, we had some ok observers and some not so ok observers. One thing that I see has been evolving with observers, and I don't know if they are told to do this, or maybe the 11th edition is favoring the D more (I think it does), but they are definitely allowing significantly more contact than they did say 5 years ago. There are different kinds of contact, as in contact when going up, contact on a layout bid around a guy, etc. I'm not going to put my two cents in there about gradations in the rules and what is/is not a foul, especially now that I'm on the D squad:)
The only observation I wanted to make is that I KNOW I was fouled on that play. The back of my left hand stung from the contact he made. I don't know whether he got the disc, but I know he got my hand. Now for an observer (or ref) to have made that call, they would have to have been in one of very FEW spots to be able to see that contact, which clearly had an effect on my ability to catch the disc. And it was a leading dump to me, which means Anders was coming into my space to make the play. So first perspective is the active observer. I feel like observers are also really pushing themselves to make calls these days regardless of whether they really know what happened. Given that, and the same ideas regarding positioning and the ability to see that play, if this had happened this year at nationals, I imagine I would have been overruled unless someone was right there (and maybe even then). And if it was referees, who would have to instantiate the call (I can see myself turning to the ref like in soccer and pantomiming the contact, etc.), forget it. And SUCKED to have a double-game point Worlds final turn on a call. It sucked for the Swedes, and it would have sucked for the US if I had been overruled by an observer and they scored to win. After that play there wasn't going to be any good outcome to that game.
So keep that in mind during the referee/observer discussions. The field is MUCH larger than a basketball courts, the kinds of fouls that can occur are much wider than during a soccer match, and the action moves around the field far more quickly (and continuously) than football. So until ultimate is ready to have 6+ highly trained referees for ALL games, not just the finals or big games, I would stay away from that concept as long as I can.
As an aside, having played with observers for many years now, it was a little weird at Worlds not having them even as an option. DoG has NEVER asked for observers. I'm sure there are those who will say it was because we were too good and didn't need them, and once we started to fade we got chippy just like everyone else. Who knows. We didn't ask for them this year, and were a little offended when Troubled Past asked for them for our game, but whatever. But back to Worlds, I didn't notice any games that we played (or that I saw) where a team was able to take advantage of the fact that no one was there to overrule a call, but the potential was there for the rules to be abused to win.
Just my thoughts (a la Match). And now I will post this without doing any editing.
Sorry, I cheated. I had to add this after the fact. I appreciated Jacob's comment regarding his view of the play, I only had an issue with his first line :) 'Alex D AKA "The Count" may not have been the friendliest guy out there'. Actually, I feel I am quite convivial, even before my Masters days. Now I will agree that I am fanatically intense and competitive on the field, so I will guess it stems from there. This nationals was interesting because I was in much more of a leadership role including subbing both lines and running the D. I only lost it once majorly when the O was in a 6 or 8 turnover hell point with RIDICULOUS turnovers. I screamed in frustration while the point was going on, and Jim was right next to me and said shutup. I quickly acknowledged my mistake and moved on. But I was definitely a lot mellower, at least verbally, because of my expanded role.
For those of you who feel you are missing out you can find the discussion here. Hopefully I grabbed the google groups link properly. I also covered this play ad nauseum over here during my early blogging days. I first caught up with the latest rendition of this thread about 8 comments in. I called Jim who of course had already noticed and we reflected on the whole fracas again. I debated whether to join in with a response on rsd, but I've been there and done that, even posting to Eurodisc back in the day after I started getting slammed there (I'm sure someone can dig up a link to that discussion) even to the point that I heard on the grapevine that Anders was all offended that I had posted something in 'his' backyard. Oh well. You can't make everyone happy.
I guess the reason I'm even addressing this at all is not to defend myself per se, although I don't have to, regardless of snide comments from types like Wagenwheel, who are advocates of refs of course and are more than happy to use this as a soapbox. I will start with observers and maybe move to refs. At nationals, we had some ok observers and some not so ok observers. One thing that I see has been evolving with observers, and I don't know if they are told to do this, or maybe the 11th edition is favoring the D more (I think it does), but they are definitely allowing significantly more contact than they did say 5 years ago. There are different kinds of contact, as in contact when going up, contact on a layout bid around a guy, etc. I'm not going to put my two cents in there about gradations in the rules and what is/is not a foul, especially now that I'm on the D squad:)
The only observation I wanted to make is that I KNOW I was fouled on that play. The back of my left hand stung from the contact he made. I don't know whether he got the disc, but I know he got my hand. Now for an observer (or ref) to have made that call, they would have to have been in one of very FEW spots to be able to see that contact, which clearly had an effect on my ability to catch the disc. And it was a leading dump to me, which means Anders was coming into my space to make the play. So first perspective is the active observer. I feel like observers are also really pushing themselves to make calls these days regardless of whether they really know what happened. Given that, and the same ideas regarding positioning and the ability to see that play, if this had happened this year at nationals, I imagine I would have been overruled unless someone was right there (and maybe even then). And if it was referees, who would have to instantiate the call (I can see myself turning to the ref like in soccer and pantomiming the contact, etc.), forget it. And SUCKED to have a double-game point Worlds final turn on a call. It sucked for the Swedes, and it would have sucked for the US if I had been overruled by an observer and they scored to win. After that play there wasn't going to be any good outcome to that game.
So keep that in mind during the referee/observer discussions. The field is MUCH larger than a basketball courts, the kinds of fouls that can occur are much wider than during a soccer match, and the action moves around the field far more quickly (and continuously) than football. So until ultimate is ready to have 6+ highly trained referees for ALL games, not just the finals or big games, I would stay away from that concept as long as I can.
As an aside, having played with observers for many years now, it was a little weird at Worlds not having them even as an option. DoG has NEVER asked for observers. I'm sure there are those who will say it was because we were too good and didn't need them, and once we started to fade we got chippy just like everyone else. Who knows. We didn't ask for them this year, and were a little offended when Troubled Past asked for them for our game, but whatever. But back to Worlds, I didn't notice any games that we played (or that I saw) where a team was able to take advantage of the fact that no one was there to overrule a call, but the potential was there for the rules to be abused to win.
Just my thoughts (a la Match). And now I will post this without doing any editing.
Sorry, I cheated. I had to add this after the fact. I appreciated Jacob's comment regarding his view of the play, I only had an issue with his first line :) 'Alex D AKA "The Count" may not have been the friendliest guy out there'. Actually, I feel I am quite convivial, even before my Masters days. Now I will agree that I am fanatically intense and competitive on the field, so I will guess it stems from there. This nationals was interesting because I was in much more of a leadership role including subbing both lines and running the D. I only lost it once majorly when the O was in a 6 or 8 turnover hell point with RIDICULOUS turnovers. I screamed in frustration while the point was going on, and Jim was right next to me and said shutup. I quickly acknowledged my mistake and moved on. But I was definitely a lot mellower, at least verbally, because of my expanded role.
posted by Alex de Frondeville at 5:12 PM
10 Comments:
I feel like observers are also really pushing themselves to make calls these days regardless of whether they really know what happened.
If so, they're going against the training. Observers are instructed to not make the call unless they are at least 90% sure. As an observer I often find it frustrating when I can't make the call, but I just do my best to position myself to make as many as I can (when requested).
well, banging out a few lines on a comment to a comment on a comment might not be all that reasonable; and probably not all that fair for that matter, and i do apprectiate the blah blah blah edit. however i don't think we were doing much "talking". that's a good idea though.
jon, I speak less of the huck receiving type fouls than on marker fouls. There were a number of marker calls that went to the observer in our game (which I think is silly in the first place) where the observer made a call and there is NO way they could have seen. I was on the field with a better perspective than they had (parallel to the disc instead of 45 degrees) on a trap marker foul and I couldn't have made a call. And trust me, I'm staring right at the person. But marking fouls are also going to be the toughest ones to call for any ref/observer.
Aren't you a little old to be on facebook?
Regarding giving the break to the D on receiving fouls, what I think the rule states (or, more correctly, what I think the official interpretation of the rule is) is that anything that happens after the defender gets the disc is irrelevant unless it is a dangerous play.
what does this play have to do with c1?.....is it the fact that they intend to maybe use refs (or give observers more power)? or was the intent for this to be a distraction/diversion from all the c1 talk?
who threw that suck pass that caused this ultimate nightmare for you alex?
picks are harder for refs to call than marker thrower contact? Little hand touch hacks are equally hard though. Understand that refs set the tone for what contact is and isnt allowed when they are used. with observers its all kinda of arbitrary.
If anything a ref woulda just helped that worlds game progress without the major stoppage AND would have taken on the role of the "bad guy" weather he would have made the call or not.
as for # of refs required.....i think that all depends on how good the participants want/expect that service to be. Lower levels of play could be easily worked with 2 to 4 people but for big games i'd go with 6.
Anon, this has absolutely nothing to do with C1. The original rsd poster put it up there because HE was fed up with the C1 talk.
You would have to ask Jim Parinella who threw that pass...
Actually, the finals game was remarkably clean (if I remember correctly) with very few stoppages. Of course, it helps that mid-game, our offense scored 12 straight times without turning the disc over. And the Swedes pretty much kept pace with that.
I think marker thrower contact is the hardest call of all to make for a ref, especially given how quickly the disc moves. You have to be in a perfect position to call that foul, and how many times are they going to be able to instantiate that foul call, especially on hand contact (unless they hear it, and even then, was it before or after the release)? I don't see it.
I have called marking fouls and retracted them after the fact when I realized the contact occurred after the throw, regardless of how frustrating it is to give it up (I grant that in my career I have probably NOT given back some of those...).
"But back to Worlds, I didn't notice any games that we played (or that I saw) where a team was able to take advantage of the fact that no one was there to overrule a call, but the potential was there for the rules to be abused to win."
You must not have seen the Japan vs. USA women's games at Worlds. In the finals, a Japanese woman called a foul after getting skied by two USA players (see the sequence here: http://freeheelimages.smugmug.com/gallery/5675796_kScHb#349651860_FDbLc) at a critical point in the game. Since there was a language barrier between the players trying to discuss the call, both teams' captains (and a translator) were brought in to discuss it.
In the end, the player would not back down from her foul call (citing the principle of verticality) and we were left with no recourse but to send the disc back. Later that point, Alex Sndyer skied another player for a D, but ended up injuring her knee on the play.
If there were observers in that game, I guarantee the initial foul call would have been overturned and Alex might not have had a hairline fracture in her fibula.
We scored the point and went on the win the game (with Alex returning to play while hiked up on adrenaline and pain killers), but we weren't so lucky when a phantom foul was called on a hand-block in double-game point against the Japanese earlier in the week. Who knows if an observer would have been able to see the play on the alleged marking foul, but at least there would be the possibility of an impartial party overturning a bogus call and have the final outcome of the game go the other way.
I wasn't thrilled with the observers in the finals of UPA club nationals this year, but it was MUCH better than not having them at all like at Worlds.
alex.....this ancient tid bit having any impact on all the C1 talk??? not bloody likely! Nuthin like this has ever happened in ulti, has it?....where as "the play" is all to common of a scernerio.
jim.....who threw the pass?
Maybe if the marker was forced by rule to back up (within reffed ulti) it would be easier to call. Kinda such that ANY contact(unless its an obvious "charge") would result in a foul on the D.
as for contact after the throw.....ask steve dugan about all that. I think he is haunted by different "worlds" ghosts than you. As he fessed up to cheating. I wonder if the dude that smacked you on the hand has any "ghosts" of his own. I mean, how could he have not been able to tell the difference between your hand and the disc?
gambler....the ole butterfly effect eh? from a viewers standpoint though, those upa observers were rather lame(and REALLY lathargic) at nationals. whats up with the poor quality of officiating that they provide. as for worlds observerless comp.....it sucked to watch too(why are they so anti observer at wfdf?). I still dont understand why you guys need observers just to stay on sides though. Oh wait a miniute, yea i do.....cause its human nature to cheat(get away with what you can)!
Alex,
As an observer, thrower/marker fouls are actually some of the easiest things to be 90% sure about, thanks in large part to the 11th edition changes which gave a precise definition to disc space. In elite play, I'd say that markers are violating disc space approximately 85% of the time, and this makes almost all contact a foul on the mark.
As far as the best perspective goes, I try to position myself to see the space between the thrower and marker clearly which is usually at a 45˚ angle behind the thrower (e.g., back and to the right on a backhand force). Sometimes the mark gets switched, so you can't always be positioned ideally, but I can still usually tell when the marker is humping the thrower.
jon, I freely acknowledge it is easy to call marker fouls on positioning. Far more difficult to determine if there was contact to the hand or forearm for instance on the throw, and even MORE difficult if the thrower says the disc is still in his hand when it was hit during the release(which I assume is still a foul, ie., the strip equivalent).
Post a Comment
<< Home