Referee Mistake

[blindbill]

NFHS
Situation:
Scrum for ball. B3 slashes A4 (FDSW) just as B4 picks up and takes off. Referee mistakes team A for team B (purple v. dark blue). Just as referee comes to senses 5 sec. later, A5 slashes B4 (flag and whistle).
What is call and why?

[NBLAX]

retalliation? wtf is a4 and b4?

[blindbill]

A4 and B4 are opposing players (Team "A" 1-10 v. Team "B" 1-10).
This is usually diagrammed as A1 and B1, but I get tired of those two.

[laxfan25]

While the mistake was made, the play was still "live" in my mind, so I would call them simultaneous fouls and put them both in the box for 1 min NR. Since they're both personal fouls they both should be assessed, even though one occurred after a mistake by the official.
Award by alternate possession would seem the fairest thing to do in light of the error.
(Didn't I cover this in my Quick Guide? :agree: )

[LaxRef]

NFHS
Situation:
Scrum for ball. B3 slashes A4 (FDSW) just as B4 picks up and takes off. Referee mistakes team A for team B (purple v. dark blue). Just as referee comes to senses 5 sec. later, A5 slashes B4 (flag and whistle).
What is call and why?

USC on both teams for having indistinguishable uniforms? :chuckle:

Seriously, though, part of this is easy: you have personal fouls on B3 and A5. They both have to serve, even though theoretically A5 might not have slashed B4 had you killed the play immediately, because he still committed a personal foul (all personal fouls are served even if they occur during a dead ball). Since we have fouls on opposing teams, the common penalty time will be NR, so most likely B3 and A5 sit for 1:00 NR each.

Now comes the hard part: who gets the ball? This is highly debatable, but here's my thought: if we call the fouls live-ball fouls—which we can do because the whistle hadn't blown yet by the time the second slash occurred, even though it should have—then we have simultaneous fouls. In that case, assuming equal penalty time, the ball is awarded to the team that was due possession, which was team A (since the initial foul was a slash by team B). Thus, award the ball to team A.

And, while I readily concede that you could probably make an argument for A.P. or for giving the ball to team B, my solution has the nice feature of giving the ball to the team that kind of got screwed by not having the whistle when team B fouled while team B was in possession!

So, two followup questions:

(1) How would all of this change if A5 had been guilty of a technical foul instead of a personal? :thinking:

(2) What did you call in the game? :concerned:

[blindbill]

I'm lucky if the teams here have ANY uniforms (shirts v. skins?). Seriously though, things are improving here quite rapidly. We even have a COC ref over here now who's teaching me a lot!

We gave both players 1 min. NR as simultaneous fouls and gave the ball to B at the spot of the foul, because B was the last to be fouled. (I argued for admitting the mistake and cancelling the 2nd slash) Both players 1 min NR.

1) I would say that if the A5 foul was techinical, A would get the ball at the spot of the foul because of less time for A. Both players sit; B 1 min. A 30 sec. Both NR for 30 sec.

LF25: Just got your QuickGuide, thanks. I'll check to see if it covers this.

[3rdPersonPlural]

I had a 5/6 game with light blue versus dark blue.

There I am, in front of the fans (parents) on the far side, ball goes out of bounds, and I throw my hands up to signal horn ok and holler 'Blue Ball!!"

Snarky parent right behind me says "You can't go wrong with that, ref."

The whole sidelines erupts in laughter, me included, and by the time I caught my breath, I had forgotten which blue got the ball.

Fortunately, snarky parent had retained that info. 'Light Blue Ball'.

[LaxRef]

1) I would say that if the A5 foul was techinical, A would get the ball at the spot of the foul because of less time for A. Both players sit; B 1 min. A 30 sec. Both NR for 30 sec.

Except I'm not even sure you penalize A if the foul is technical. The play was supposed to be dead--you were just coming to realize--and then A1 interferes with B2. I think I'd treat it like a dead-ball ward (just after the whistle): there's no advantage gained, so no foul. In other words, how can we penalize team A for a technical when the only reason it happened was that we were slow on the whistle and the wrong team was in possession? Personal, sure, you always have to serve that, but not a technical.

As eme likes to point out, there are certain live-ball technicals we don't call during a dead-ball.

[LaxRef]

I had a 5/6 game with light blue versus dark blue.

There I am, in front of the fans (parents) on the far side, ball goes out of bounds, and I throw my hands up to signal horn ok and holler 'Blue Ball!!"

Hopefully I'll never have to deal with that, but if I did I think they'd be "light" and "dark." Or maybe I'd make them go shirts and skins.

I did a game recently where one team had white helmets, red shoulders, white bodies, and red shorts, while the other had red helmets, white shoulders, red bodies, and red shorts. I'm looking forward to the new jersey rules (as opposed to the New Jersey rules) going into effect in 2008.