The week before this tournament was my last week of University before graduation, requiring the presentation of my senior projects and other such matter. In an unexpected event my team won 2nd place in the senior design competition for our tape measure and tool used to manufacture it (pictured). We were to win several hundred dollars but were also required to attend the awards ceremony. The awards were set to be given the night before this tournament in Raleigh (4 plus hours from Charleston, SC where the rugby tournament was located). I was the leader of the senior design team, obliged to attend.
Friday night also happened to be the "Hillsborough Hike," the traditional drinking challenge for graduating seniors from nc state - drinking a beer at every establishment along hillsborough street, which I was also obliged to partake in.
In sum, it was a challenge to wake up that saturday morning and cruise the 4 plus hour drive to charleston to referee my first game at 11 AM. As I arrived (at 11 am, on time) I discovered the teams (Citadel Women and Charleston Women) had already taken the field, fully kitted up and ready to go, waiting for me. So I rushed to the field, loaded up with my whistle and scorecard ready to go, sat down to tie my boots and SNAP - my left shoe lace split. Referees cannot be late, my boots are too small anyway, I took the field and started the game, one shoe totally untied. I remedied the problem at half time with my spare shoe laces.
I refereed the following games:
Charleston Hurricanes v. Citadel Women
Columbia v. Citadel Men
Citadel B v. College of Charleston B
The most interesting event of the day was in the Columbia v. Citadel game, a "cavalry charge."
First of all, the field was poorly lined, some white lines and some blue lines - used for soccer, track and field, and now rugby. As a player the try line was particularly confusing, there was a very faint white line about 2 meters beyond the actual try line (blue) - throughout the day I had a number of different players score to the white line instead of the actual try line.
At any rate, Citadel was awarded a penalty 5-10 meters out for hands in the ruck. They formed up for a tap and go in a "flying wedge" formation. The players began their run before the quick tap so I prepared to call the cavalry charge.....only for the scrumhalf (taking the quick tap) to pass to his flyhalf and not to any of the players running in the "wedge." The Columbia captain however, immediately protested, all of his players stopped playing, the citadel flyhalf then cut back inside through the wedge OVER THE TRYLINE.....but he was trying to reach the fake one, he was stopped and formed a "maul" (though a maul cannot exist in-goal) (the columbia captain still whining about the cavalry charge). A citadel player then dropped the ball to ground behind him, one his scrumhalf came up behind him and picked the ball up from the ground in the tryzone...I awarded the try....
In sum, maybe I should have stopped play when the flyhalf stepped back inside to the "wedge" of player congestion for accidental offsides...scrum to columbia....but columbia should really just respond to my whistle and not what infringements they think they see.....
I thought this day was an improvement over the some of the previous weekends when taking into to consideration my interpretation of offsides and positioning (still primarily in the saddle), but the Columbia coach said I was missing a lot of offsides from the position....but on the same token, I dont think it's really worth calling those truly marginal offsides calls...it's mainly important the players are just respecting a line around their last foot....
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