I traveled down to Hartford, CT for a hot hot day of 10s rugby. My GF was up for a visit, anxious to see me refereeing again for some reason….my #1 fan.
We had 4 referees, 10 teams and……3 fields???? 3 fields??? Not only did they for some reason insist on using 3 fields, two of the 3 fields had aobut 36# inch grass on it two days before! And it hadn’t been cleared! At any rate, it made for very soft ground on those two fields, but soft ground does not make for fast running…which 10s is supposed to promote.
At any rate, I did enjoy the rugby I refereed on this day. My first game was UCONN B vs. New Haven. I found myself calling a number of penalties against UCONN for not releasing. I also pinged them for not being back 10 on a lineout…after I yelled get back about 5 times with no response. On a side note, I thought I was very strict with my “not releasing” calls for the entire day….but 10s seems conducive to the penalty. There’s a lot more one on one contact in this than sevens/fifteens with support significantly slower to arrive. In the end, New Haven blanked the UCONN killer bs.
My second game was Western Conn (D3/D4) vs. Dartmouth (top D1 college). Now I was not prepared for the indiscipline of Western Conn, they would just flagrantly be offside and have their hands in ruck with no abandon despite my communication. I was simply appalled by this lack of respect for the laws….It seems I have not dealt with a team at this level in some while. At any rate, their flagrant illegality did not produce any stolen ball for them or really slow up Dartmouth…nevertheless….Dartmouth could not stop whining about it…and it really annoyed me. I certainly tightened up on Western Conn after I realized they were not going to listen to my communication, but even after Western Conn cut out their illegalities, Dartmouth continued to whine about some very silly things…especially considering the score…some teams just whine I guess.
My 3rd game…..I skipped. The long grass had wreaked havoc on my ankle to cause pain I’d never felt before. I retired to ice and stretching to prepare for the late afternoon final.
The final was UCONN Alumni vs. White Plains…both of whom were undefeated throughout the tournament. White Plains were the hotly tipped winners, but one if their key players went off injured in the first few minutes of the game, making for a very tight affair. The game went to a draw..10-10…I really wasn’t happy when white plains missed their easy conversion to win. We went into sudden death overtime...thank god it wasn’t penalty kicks again. UCONN made a great break out wide only to be tackled near in goal. Ruck Formed, defensive line formed, I’m in my normal position….and the phase runner decides to run straight into my back. Now, I don’t think he needed to do that…I think it’s really possible he just wanted the scrum for touching the referee with the ball.
Take a look at this video where this player used that law to his advantage:
One other key point I want to make about the final is a call I made on the UCONN Alumni Try line. White plains produced a strong attack but UCONN made a strong tackle and stripped the ball…only to then be collapsed down and driven further towards their goal line. I went for a penalty to UCONN for collapsing the ruck (considering they had seemed to win the ball fair and square) but looking back on it…I think this is another situation where I would have preferred going to a scrum – in this case to White Plains. I don’t think the UCONN player was really intentinonally collapsed, I think he was knocked in the ruck, resulting in a eventual buried ball with Plains driving forward à Plains scrum. Oh well, going forward, need to make sure I give this more thought and not just go straight for a gut penalty.
One more thing…..at our summer society meeting the weekend following this game somebody referred to White Plains as “White Complains.” I found this quite humorous because I do recall a number of totally nonsensical “offside” comments from their side. I mean, situations where there seriously could have never been offside…..they really do just like to complain about nothing. An apt name.
Overall it was a good tournament, I was happy to get more practice with my team of 3 in the final (thanks boys) and get to see fellow refs again.
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