Olympic Qualifiers 3/3 and Media Round-Up | #WhatUpWednesday Ep. 145

📅 19.00 GMT
➡️ YouTube

We're just not ready to Elsa those magical 80 matches, so let's wrap up loose ends from the FIH #OlympicQualifiers with appeals for a ball played intentionally off the back line, fine lines between danger and playing with the body on a shot at goal, and why the 40s regulation is just a regulation.

We talk about exactly what “reckless as to the result” means in our Skills Segment, and take a peek 'round the old socials and see whether we've got a Rant of the Week anywhere.

See you live or hit up the comments if you're #replaysquad!

🚨 Sign up now and nail those big calls with Mission Critical Positioning!

⏱ Chapter Markers:
0:00 Chair Dancing
05:27 Topics!
06:27 1. Intentionally played off back line – NZLvGER (M) Olympic Qualifier
32:03 2a. Double 40s PAKvCHN (M) Olympic Qualifiers
48:26 2b. Delay on PC injection ESPvKOR (M) Olympic Qualifiers
53:08 3. Danger vs. Playing with the Body – INDvUSA (W) Olympic Qualifiers
01:12:47 4. Skill Session: Reckless As To The Result
01:20:26 5. Media Round-Up

Check out when the next #WhatUpWednesday will go live.

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Transcript

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#WhatUpWednesday Ep. 145

Just wanna be okay. How can I pick up the pieces? When everything breaks with every day. I'm getting older. I feel the weight up on my shoulders. I'm strong enough. I will rise above. It's all gonna be okay. If I can be anything, I think I'm gonna be me.

I know

where I wanna go, No one else I'd rather be. I think I'm gonna be, I think I'm gonna be me. La, la, la, la, la, la. La, la, la. La, la, la, la, la. I think I'm gonna be, I think I'm gonna be me. Everything's changing, just trying to navigate. Oh, I keep on believing, I'm gonna find my way. With every day, I'm getting older.

I feel the weight upon my shoulders. I'm strong enough, I will rise above. It's all gonna be okay. If I can be anything, I think I'm going to be me.

I know I gonna be me.

I wanna, I think I'm be, I think I'm gonna be me.

I think I'm gonna be me, me, me. I know I gotta be me, me, me. There's nowhere else I wanna go. No one else I'd rather be. I think I'm gonna be, I think I'm gonna be me. I know I gotta be me, me, me. First I wanna go, no one else I'd rather be. I think I'm gonna be, I think I'm gonna be me. La, la, la, la, la. La, la, la, la, la.

La, la, la, la, la. I think I'm gonna be me.

Oh, well, hello there. Welcome to What Up Wednesday, Keely Dunn, FHumpires, and you're the third team. And this is going to be a chill show. Mm hmm. Uh, no, no, no. I can see you looking at me like that. I can see that little rolling your eyes. You're very dubious. I would be skeptical as well. My track record.

Adhering to, this is going to be short, this is going to be chill, this isn't going to be a whole thing. Is admittedly poor. Like I'm just, I'm just not good at keeping my word on such things, but no, really, it's a shorter show. I just wanted to get a few things tied up from the Olympic qualifiers. Yeah. Give us a little rest after the pandemonium that 80 matches brought to us.

I mean, it was intense. It was a thing. It was a whole 80 matches. I looked at, and I have this whole. project management system where all the matches flow through and I watched 43 of them, which, you know, is not the kind of percentage that I usually like to hit, but given that 80 matches were happening over 10 days, 12 days, pretty good.

That's a lot of matches, a lot of matches. So for those of you who are watching with and alongside in the, uh, FHumpires, third team yellow watch parties and green, And green. Thank you very much. I thought it was a great time and it's always more fun to be able to share these experiences and the learnings and the gossip with friends.

So thank you for being there. Uh, I think everybody is filtering in and I said hello to a few people earlier. And by saying hello, I put your name on the screen. I hope that's cool. And, uh, Emma's here. Good to see you. Oh, hello.

I hope I'm saying that right. Am I saying that right? I don't know. Um, the sound is muffled. Sound is fine. Look, get it together, people. Don't freak me out because I do have noise cancellation on because this idiot decided to start the washing or the dishwasher. Two hours ago and it's not done yet. So there you go.

It is going to be less than a Keely hour. It's going to be an actual hour. That's what we're doing. And I don't know what face orange TV shape, face orange TV shape, face orange TV shape means, but it's what YouTube does or Ecamm and YouTube and all that kind of stuff does is everything's coming in. Hi, Dave.

Good to see you. This is what we're covering today. We're going to look at an intentionally played off the end line, 40 seconds on the PC and delaying, perhaps, danger versus playing with the body, our skill session this week, reckless as to the result, indeed, and a little media roundup for funsies. Because it is fun.

It is fun to look at the whole medias and there we go. Uh, another vote for okay. Good to, good to know. Good to know. Stain? You can't freak me out like that. Do you know how many of these shows I start off and I've screwed up my sound? Don't answer that. Those of you who know the answer, don't answer. Keep it to yourself.

It's lots of TV. There you go. Yeah. It's the communication between YouTube and your camera. That's, uh, there you go. And Richard's here. Okay, uh, let's, let's get into it, because

an intentionally played off the end line. So, this comes to us from the, uh, New Zealand Germany game at the Olympic qualifiers in Oman. It was there, so I think New Zealand might refers really difficult to refer to. I just happened not to have link to it properly. John Edwards interpretation and they've made the signal, gimme a hot minute.

It's a big call. 'cause that was an accelerating player. Now the issue with will immediately be, is there stick movement as he plays that ball or is he just right? I just put a link in for where the poll is if you, but it's always in the same channel and you can find it. It shouldn't be that hard. Well, Ben, I'll get to see you and stick head goes.

His stick head has moved forwards as he's running. That's not a stack stick. Jolt's got my back there. You guys, I think my comments are fixed. I'm really excited. All I had to do was complain to my friends, and then we did a little test, and then it worked. So, yes, I wanted to look at this one, particularly because It's one of those opportunities that we have to go through the criterion.

And I left in some of the commentary language, but there was more, and there often is more, that I find to be awfully unhelpful. And for the criterion to be applied, simply that, could the player have done anything else? is extraordinarily unhelpful. Or the catchphrase that you hear so often, it was only going one way, is also extremely unhelpful.

Because the inevitability of a very, uh, innocuously, accidentally deflected ball is the same inevitability as if the choice is made, so that doesn't help us. So the question is, how do we arrive at this kind of conclusion? How do we actually make this decision in a way that is going to be sound, reasonable, replicatable, and something we can apply in a variety of situations?

So we had the discussion, we've had a discussion several times, uh, yeah, there we go, in the Discord server, and over the course of many of these chats, I've been able to Sort of outline what I think is a bit more of a helpful, uh, thing. And if you're not a member of the Discord server, make sure you get in there.

Because we have some really, really helpful, um, interchanges. That isn't just, uh, me talking to people. It's really a way that we can build better ways of expressing ourselves. A tighter consensus. It's testing out what consensus we have arrived on to a bunch of different situations. So don't hesitate to get in the server if you're not, um, um, if you're not going there.

Yeah. This drives me crazy. Where's it going umpire? Well, exactly the way that it went, but that's not what we're judging here. We're not judging as to whether it went over the back line. Thanks, Jules. We are judging as to whether it was played that way intentionally. And yeah, definitely not biased. Um, I, I, that's what I totally had figured there.

So I'm gonna pull this nice and close, which is probably gonna help me. So one day I, I drafted this list and I've been editing it and, you know, trying to manipulate it. Can you see that on your screens? Is that, is that big enough? Here, if I blow it up like that. Does that help? I think that's a lot more reasonable.

Okay. And this whole thing that I talk about it right at the top that we have to apply some principles that we use our eyes rather than trying to read minds will also come up, uh, later on in our skills session, because yes, it is true. We are terrible mind readers. So these are the sort of things that we're looking for.

We're looking at what direction is the defender facing? IE wear their hips, shoulders, head, all those things. 'cause there can be a combination of, of all these things, their feet could be pointed one way. Their shoulders and hips could be pointed another, their head could be, you know, totally looking in a different direction.

We're looking at all those things. Okay. We're looking at where is the defender vis-a-vis the attacker. Which side of their body are they on? Are they close to them? Are they, uh, you know, are, are they, are they around the side? What can that attacker do in that situation that would influence whether that ball is going to get played in that direction?

What kind of contact did the defender make with the ball? Was it solid? Was it glancing? Did they move the stick in one direction and then the ball kind of went off in the other because they didn't actually hit it properly? They missed it, they half contacted it, all that kind of thing. That's going to be something to look at.

What was the direction of the stick movement, or the swing, okay? Did that mirror where the ball actually went, which is also related to whether there was good contact. How much force was behind? How the ball got played. Okay. Did, was it just a, a, a gentle push that maybe the ball could have got caught up with, or was it, was it really hit quite solidly?

That sort of thing. How long was the ball in play for before it left the pitch? And that can be related to the angle that the ball was traveling, the proximity to the back line. Um, all that sort of thing. How far away from the goal did it happen? Okay, that's another big one. Okay, how much body control did the defender have when they were playing the ball?

Were they falling down at the time and off balance and did they, was there stick in one hand or were they standing very stable? Very set, very in control, and therefore much more likely to execute the skill that they are looking to execute in that moment. And I'm gonna screw up almost Oh, nope. Those were all of the factors, okay?

And I do say here That these might not be the only ones. I, this is a work in progress. This is something that, um, there was another, uh, clip that we looked at a few months ago and it was from the Men's Junior World Cup, I believe. And if anybody remembers exactly which show that came from, I would be, like, not too mad if you looked it up and grabbed the time stampling for me.

And the player actually was trying to keep the ball, it was exiting off the sideline, but for any intervention it would have gone off his teammate and it would have exited the sideline and he goes diving across the pitch and he's very close to the sideline and he swipes with a stick and it sends the ball off the backline instead and that was called as a penalty corner.

And, you know, our consensus certainly was, well, that doesn't seem to be the right result because any player in that circumstance, he's trying to actually keep it in play and probably curl it back around him, but he failed. And the result of it going off the sideline is really no different than it being a 23 meter restart.

At the point at which it exited the back line, it really was, you know, six of one and a half dozen of the other. So another little factor, another criterion could be, is it actually a better result to achieve a 23 meter restart rather than the result that would have happened but for the contact with the ball in that moment?

So that was another sort of improvisational one that I could have added to that. But I did not, but, or I haven't added it to that particular post. But if you think of any others, I'd really like to hear them because I think it's important that we really work through this. And the point being is that if you take that entire list and you say, well, he had really good control of his body, but his feet were actually pointed to the sideline and you, you, you sort of put pro and con, or you put PC 23.

You know, you, you add up all of the things and you check off the list on both sides of the ledger and you weigh it out. I think you get to a much more clear result. And then, if you sat there and you had an even amount of weight on both sides of the ledger, what would your result be? A 23 meter restart.

Because we don't assume, or we, we err on the side of The lower penalty when we're in that much doubt. Okay, so that's, that's sort of my speech, my little sermon on that sort of thing, and I hope that's helpful at all. Uh, definitely readable there. So, let's apply it to this situation, as the exercise. Okay, and pretend you're not from New Zealand, or cheering for them.

Uh, but, what, how would we, how would we face this? Okay, we would look at the things like, the director, the director, the direction that the defender is facing. He's facing straight off the back line. His face, hips, shoulders, feet, everything is going that direction. How much control did he have over his body?

Pretty decent. You know, he wasn't falling over, he wasn't entirely within his own control, but he's, he's in full stride. He's not tripping or anything like that. How much force was put into the ball? A pretty reasonable amount. How much contact did he get? It wasn't fully solid, but it was, it was, it was probably fairly, fairly decent.

Where was he vis a vis the attacker who was coming in? Well, you can see that he's attempting a tackle side on and it's like a jab. What direction does his swing go? It goes basically straight towards the back line. How close was he to the backline when that happened? He was actually pretty far away, but there was no angle or anything that took it away.

It just went straight in that direction. Okay, so once we add up all those things, we get to what I think is the result of a penalty corner to restart this backline. And I'd love to hear, um, whether That helps. Um, Rock, hopefully somebody will be able to help you with that. Um, if that doesn't work,

sometimes, this link does not expire, the one that I just put in the chat right now, it should not be a problem for you. That, that, that has to be, it's, it's, it goes to infinity. It's the one that is the, is my Discord, uh, programmed. Custom link. So it's gotta work. If that's not it, then I would invite you to try out a different browser if you can, uh, because sometimes there's just a little glitches with that, but maybe one of the mods can step in and give you a hand if that helps.

Okay? So that's basically that. It seems like this isn't a very controversial call because nobody's giving me any sass about it. Is there anybody else that wants to chime in on this one? Is there anything that you see? What would take you away from what would be on the other side of the ledger in this particular play that would, you'd, would make you think it's a 23 meter restart instead, okay?

You might say, for example, the control over the stick, that the attacker's stick somewhat interferes with his. Whether there's a strict stick obstruction there or not, not really sure. And that he doesn't have full control over the directionality of his swing in that moment. Or maybe it's vice versa. That could be a factor that you look at.

So there you go. Uh, good to see you, MDP. Really great to have you. Okay. But for me, I think when you weigh all those things up, that's how you can get to a conclusion. And, I mean, let's face it, this wasn't super obvious in the moment. I know, umpire's decision was, and we know it went to referral, and this is only in Q2.

So you would generally consider that to be a pretty risky time to make this kind of referral. And it just goes to show you that I think once you take a moment and you apply this very reasoned approach, it gets really a lot easier. Now that I've gone through this whole list that we had. Now that I've gone through this entire criterion, do you think, Oh, yeah, that, that's pretty obvious.

That's the whole point. That's the whole point of us taking a, uh, an approach like this, a step by step going through the factors by just saying, well, where else was it going? Doesn't give you any certainty at all. It doesn't help you actually arrive at a decision that you're going to be able to replicate in another situation like this.

So, uh, very interested. Okay, so Joel's asking, so the ultimate result that was given was the video referral was successful and the play was restarted with a penalty corner. So there you go. Oh! Yaku's helping. Well, Yaku, you're just, you're just diving right in there. I love it. I love it. Um, Dave, you could have tried a shorter jab to keep control of the ball.

Yeah, I mean there were There were many things. And actually, I had an interesting comment on one of my, um, one of my old Feature Friday videos. By the way, can somebody like send me a note to go review all my Feature Friday videos and the Ruly Tuesdays? Cause some of them might be out of date. Like, they've been up for a while and it's really nice there because they are nice little bite sized pieces.

I did them, um, primarily in 20 20 and 2021, when I had even more time than I do now during the pandemic. And I was churning out just tons and tons of videos and, um, and they're, they're a nice, I think people get, get hit with them and because they're shorter people on YouTube are like, Oh, this person isn't totally unreasonable.

Maybe I want to go watch her talk for. A keely hour. And then they show up to a live stream. But anyway, um, somebody commented on an old feature Friday about intentionally playing the ball off the end line. And the motion was a jab tackle. And it was a coach who was asking me, well we coach this as a skill.

to put players under pressure and all that sort of thing. And I think what his question was really leaning towards was this whole idea that, well, if the skill is trying just to apply pressure and to disrupt the ball carrier, how can that be intentionally playing the ball at the end line? And it's like, well, that gets to the mind reading part again.

That we don't do and just because the skill is meant to be deployed in a certain situation that coaches are asking their players This is what I want you to do a jab tackle And the reason I want you to do this is because you're gonna be able to disrupt the ball carrier You're gonna you're gonna make them, you know pick their their They're gonna put their head down.

They're gonna be more concerned about the ball. They won't be able to see their options They'll make a mistake all that kind of stuff. That's certainly the way that I defended I Always, I only defended through jab tackles because I didn't have anything else, it wasn't fast enough to do anything else, and I just tried to force my opponents to make mistakes and give me the ball without me actually taking it from them.

But it doesn't mean that it still wouldn't be an intentional play of the ball off the end line, because if that jab tackle has the effect, And everything's pointed in that direction, and there's sufficient force, and it's proximate to the back line. And we go through the criterion, just because your coach says, I don't want you to jab tackle the ball off the end line, I want you just to use this to pressure.

Doesn't mean that hasn't been intelligibly played off the back line. So, there you go. That was a nice point, Dave. Thanks for bringing that up. And the Flintstone Cottage is in the house! Click on it. Okay. Uh, there you go. And it is. It's a very contentious decision. And it's weird because it's also one of those decisions that it's the time that we award what is known as a team penalty for something that isn't actually a foul.

It is simply a method of restarting play. So, another spot of confusion that, uh, umpires, players, and coaches sometimes get into is whether they should be If it's really intentional, or if it's been repeated, or it's high impact. Do they then move up the control elevator? And the answer is no! No, you don't.

You do not move up the control elevator, because this is simply the method that we use to restart the play. And we don't turn. It's, you can't intentionally intend something. The in, the intentional part is the reason that we restarted the penalty corner as well. That's the way that I always said, are you intentionally intending that?

Or are you, you get yourself into a whole bunch of, a whole bunch of cycles. Okay, let's have a look at the poll and see if anybody's managed to slip in there. Okay, I like it. You know, I was thinking. Could this be the day? No, it's not going to be the day. It's not going to be the day that everything works.

Hold please.

Oh, this is my favorite. When I sit here and literally log in to Discord, on Ecamm, in a livestream, the best. The best. Okay, boy, last week was big, wasn't it? Oh, where is one? There it is. Okay. Um, let's see how we did. Twelve of you Did we just get unanimous? Did we Did that just happen? Where's my confetti?

Here, let me blow that.

Excellent. And, to me, I'm gonna take full credit to that because clearly it was my very thorough explanation and and reasons. That aside, please do come and feedback about that. If there are situations that you have seen, particularly if you have video, please do bring them into the Discord server and post them in AskFHU so we can go through the exercise because it's a really, really effective way of practicing our decision making.

Because what happens is, once this gets to be very habitual, once you've gone Uh, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, okay, it's this. You do that enough times, that just becomes the neural pathway that you can make that split second decision on. And then, um, I, I remember listening to a podcast on decision making and what gut instinct is.

And the argument that the presenter was making is that gut instinct is simply just really, really good, fast, habitual decision making informed by a lot of experience. So what you want to do is build your experience and habitually go through these factors. Get those other useless phrases out of your mind and use this as your framework when you're on the pitch.

And I think you'll be really pleased with the results. Be very happy with your level of decision making on this. And the players will be too. At least half of them will be in any given call. The other half, I, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe some of the other half, maybe a few of them will be less outraged than you would like.

Oh goodness. Okay. Let me just see what's happening. Uh, okay. It's quiet in the comments too. You know, just because I'm having a quieter show doesn't mean that I don't want you to, like, throw the banter, keep, keep getting in there because then I, I get a little lost, feeling a little, a little out there. Let me give you a bit of an announcement here, because I, you know I love to celebrate these things, and I would like to congratulate the following individual.

Mr. Yakubota, who is in the comments today, for joining Yellow. Last week, did I say Yaku? I totally said Yaku.

Anyway, Yaku, I am so pleased, and Yaku actually sent me a DM, the nicest DM. If you, okay, if you're having a bad day, here's what, here's what I suggest. I don't care what your reason is. You're, you're having your car broke down, um, maybe something hard happened with your family, maybe you had a bad day on the pitch.

I don't care what it is. Let's go into the discord server and ping Yaku and say, Hey, Yaku, can you just give me a bit of a pick me up? This is the situation because nobody's going to make you feel better than this guy. He's just so kind and generous. With his gratitude, with his sharing his advice, and his knowledge, and Anyway, I can't say enough good things about Yaku, and I'm so pleased that he's part of our community.

And he's already sitting here helping, uh, our friend Rock get into I hope I'm saying that right? Helping Rock to get into the Discord server. Oh, there he is! Let's see. Um, and look at that! We have success! Oh, that didn't work. Ugh, just when I think I'm gonna Get all my sounds going. Wait, which one's good?

Let's do that one. Anyway, Yaku, thank you. Thank you, and I'm really excited for the next, like, all the things. I know what a photo that is. Like, oh, it didn't work again because it's the same button. Damn it!

That's right, friends. That's the kind of photo that I want for all of my sharings here. So there you go. You've had a lot of co ops with the legend. Oh, this is awesome. So is that how you found out about us? It's from Ya Oh, is Yaku coming to EHCO? And if not, why not?

I'm ready for this discussion.

Um, oh, they, well see. This is why this is continuing education, Simon. I'm very, very keen to make sure that everybody understands and continues to develop the full range of their umpiring skills, including looking dope on camera. There you go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that interlude. See, I feel better already.

I was a little down, and now I feel great because I got to see Yaku and know that he's already been helping folks out. Let's move on to our next topic, shall we? 40 seconds on the PC, slash delays, slash blablabla. And, this one I just wanted to show you how to do, as an example. Pakistan instantly, 'cause it's the first time I've seen it happen.

Creates poor defensive shape. There's a nudge. You can't take your hand up. It is so obvious. You then go, oh, hands up in the air. I didn't do it. Well, yes you did. So I'm absolutely nailed on because Pakistan aren't stepping out because they go, okay, someone else can do my running. And it's really, really difficult to shift that mindset, particularly with an inexperienced team, that actually what you do with an extra player is you run more, make bigger spaces.

There's a green card now that's a double penalty. Wow, he's killing Pakistan The injectors not even there. He has to he has to give a card to China You cannot give a green card for the defense not being ready. It's a green card. So he's got to come off the pitch

Center halfway and Now the injector goes so far, but they've both been set off So there you go. We had neither team was ready within the 40 seconds, so, uh, so the injector for the attacking team who was also slow and, uh, a Pakistan, the last Pakistan defender who was ready, uh, went as well. And it was, it's a really difficult situation.

I think we can all empathize with Amit here because when you have. More than one thing to deal with at a time, it, it makes it harder to present it nice and cleanly and, and clearly. And so just having to make sure. That a player went off for the green card, and he doesn't want to take his eyes off that situation and he's got players yelling at him.

And you have another player coming back and, you know, all this kind of stuff. You see it, there was another player who, who came, uh, running away, who was going to, I don't know, replace? That's a lot of stuff to deal with at once. And then, after he dealt with that, he was able to deal with the injector who was also late.

But one of the important things I wanted to point out, because this has been a subject of discussion that I've had with several people here now, is that this is not a new rule of hockey. This is not, not because it's not new, but not because it's not a rule of hockey. And we have to be really careful about whether we accidentally just take the things that we see at the international level, now that there's so much hockey that we get to watch.

Fantastic. But we don't necessarily put our thinking cap on and figure out whether this is a rule or if it's a regulation. And those two things are very different. So, if you go to the rules of hockey and you go all through these things about the match and the result and the time And if you go through 2.

2 and, uh, and substitutions and compositions of teams, if you go all the way to rule 13, which, uh, 13. 3, which deals with the conduct of the procedure of taking a penalty corner, you will not find anything in here that tells you that if a player isn't ready within 40 seconds that you need to award a green card.

That is in the regulations. of certain, and I think it's all of them now, uh, FIH high level, well, FIH competitions. So this is just one of the, um, there's, there's versions of regulations for different levels of FIH competition as well. There's top tier regulations, there's world cup regulations, there's olympic regulations, there's hockey five regulations, there's like all these different regulations, most of which are quite similar, but what regulations are there for is to give us that um, ability to tailor the competition to local requirements, to purposeful competition specific requirements.

Level requirements, all those sort of things, right? So anything that you think is like, you know, we're not on TV. Like, we're not being live streamed here. So do we have to make sure that the penalty corner resumes? Is this exactly at a time that the producers of the broadcast know that it's going to come back so that they have enough time to show the replay and the commentators have this specific frame of time in which they can give their analysis and all that sort of thing?

No! Oh, we're not being live streamed. Okay, so I guess it probably isn't applying to us. Now, you might be in a competition without live streaming, without being international, where a regulation like this does apply. So you have to be aware of your competition regulations. That's why, for example, before you start a tournament, that you'll have a tournament briefing.

I sure hope you do. And if you can't all get together in a hotel bar and sit around with a bunch of laptops and have a presentation, by a really, really fun person, then hopefully you're receiving the information, maybe a slideshow or something like that another way, but this is the staple of every competition.

And it might be that you have one of these before your league starts for the season. So if you're in New Zealand right now, maybe you're having pre competition league briefing meetings. That's right now in Australia, maybe. Maybe South Africa? Question mark? I can't remember the timing of your comps. So this is so that everybody can get on the same page about what is specifically going to be in place in your area that year.

And that's where the new stuff happens. You might also, in that briefing meeting, get your attention called to evolved interpretations, new rules that have been put in place, all that kind of stuff. But this is, this whole 40 second thing is only strictly to be applied. at FHCons. Doesn't mean that if you are, um, if you are in your local area and you don't have a 40 second regulation, but a team is taking too long to get ready and you are taking your proactive steps.

You've communicated to them that you need them to hurry up. That they're wasting time, blah, blah, blah. Absolutely, you take whatever remedies that you know are appropriate because you have been moving through your control elevator. So, it could be that something that takes 41, 42, 43 seconds does end up being a green card, but it's not because it's a rule.

It's because you are deeming that to be time wasting and you have been proactive in communicating with the players at the time. So, let's see Um, all the stuff. Dave, do you think he noticed the injector wasn't ready before he was told? Uh, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But there you go. Luke's here. Good to see you.

Uh, got out of the rain. There you go. This is when, um, yeah, you'll look into the rulebook only excluding the briefing. Yeah. And, and so that's You know, that's the grand sum of it. Also, this is outlined in the FIH briefing in the green card. Oh, you know, I wonder if I have that. Hold the phone. No, I didn't do that.

Um, I'm, I'm building scenes as we're going. And I'm gonna add the briefing, uh, segments. Do I have it somewhere else?

If I, if I go to the rules scene

Is it there? Is the overlay there?

No. Okay, so what I should do is I should put the briefing slides for the green, the yellow 5, cards for outdoor, and do the same for the, uh, 1, 2, and 4 for indoor, and And that way we can look at them. So I can understand that if somebody is using the FH briefing as their interpretive guidebook to applying the rules of hockey with an eye to being aligned with international standards, that they might look at that and think, Oh, well, it mentions here that a green card is for, you know, not being ready in the 40 seconds.

And then you get yourself a little twisted. I understand that. Life isn't perfect. We still have to do a little bit of our own thinking, but hopefully. There you go. Um, oh, so in South Africa you're going to have your briefing before the end of March and it'll probably be John Wright. Absolutely. Always fun to, uh, to listen to him.

So, uh, please do say hi from me, uh, if you're there, uh, and you have no space for a third stopwatch. Yeah. Like there's a lot of, you know, there you go. Um, loving the recklessness of the result. Well, yes. Indeed, we're about to talk about this. Uh, Luke, you had this in a game you just did. Defender was getting set up with knee guards and leg guards.

You stopped time to allow them to be ready and safe. Everybody's happy. Yes. And that's where it's important to understand the context of your competition, right? The skill level, the players and the amount of practice that they have had. There is a debate at the international level as to whether it's appropriate to have such a, you know, a strict time limit.

That gets just absolutely spot, you know, dead on applied at every penalty corner. And I've, I've listened to, you know, Brennan Creed has arguments that I think are salient about how, well, it, you know, isn't the most important thing that we can put our gear on safely. And the reply can Can be made. The counter argument to that is 40 seconds is enough time for you to get your stuff on if you're not arguing with the umpire.

So, there's often that element where they want to kind of have that cake and eat that too. I'm concerned when there aren't ball patrol people who are helping getting their equipment back into the area. So if they've, if they've thrown a mask off The sideline, because they were doing their job, and they were trying to make sure that they didn't play with their face mask on over the 23 meter line, and it was a reasonable time to remove it, and blah, blah, blah.

Well, how do you, you know, how do you penalize them for that? And, and so it's another thing that umpires have to be aware of at this level, is let's not penalize players for doing the right things under the rules, and trying to do those things safely. And then being disadvantaged on a subsequent penalty corner decision.

So, just something to keep in mind. And in Luke's case, he's talking about, at that skill level, they haven't drilled how to put their equipment on quickly. And, it, it, I, I mean, look at the international teams, like, those defenders literally practice how to put their stuff on quickly. The women players are styling their hair so that it's really easy to put the mask on around it.

You know, like the, the, the amount of detail work that they do to make sure that they're ready for this is, is really significant. So, you know, Keely Dunn. Um, well, and, and I hope Dawn that I've just sort of outlined what some of it is. And at this, at this level, why the 40 seconds is there is for production value.

And I know that I certainly feel like, Oh, we're in this rhythm of like, I know how long 40 seconds is just like I know how long two minutes is and how long five minutes and 10 minutes are because we get that same discipline period of time and it is excellent for production. And it doesn't mean that if there's a good reason to not enforce the 40 seconds that umpires don't have that discretion discretion at this level.

They absolutely do. But it helps, it helps immeasurably with discipline. The amount of crowding that's occurred at penalty corners has vastly, vastly reduced. And like we saw last week with the crowd that we had, it actually kind of happened because they were absolutely going to take their video referral.

And because of the video referral, the 42nd clock wasn't running. So they got to take all the shots that they wanted at that time. And if you remember, that was, um, that was the GB New Zealand semi final, uh, in Oman here. So there's a very good reason for the 40 seconds. It's a little bit of a, I mean, is it the intended consequence?

I don't know, but it sure helps. It sure helps everything. So, um, what? Oh yes. And I definitely know what Keely hour is. Yeah.

And, Don, you can see the production value, but playing with a player lasts for two minutes because a defender is a second late for production value. You know it's not. You know they're not going by a second late. You know, you've seen it happen, or maybe you haven't because you don't join in enough watch parties, Don.

But, it happens all the time, that they're just, they're ducking in, and they're running there, and the cards come when it's clear. So, I don't want to take that. Yes, the 40 seconds starts immediately from the, the penalty corner is given. There is a, um, there's a 40 second clock somewhere and it might be that there's a secondary clock or it's part of the main big, uh, massive, you know, the, the main replay screen, uh, that they have there.

And that's controlled by the tech table. So the tech, there is a timing judge who's responsible for stopping the main time and starting the 42nd clock. And then oftentimes a controlling umpire will listen to their supporting umpire, help them with the countdown. And they'll say 30, 20, 10, 5, 4, 3. So they're counting down for them because sometimes it's the controlling umpire, you're facing the wrong way and you don't see the clock.

So, and you're trying to make sure that nothing else, no other chaos and dogs and cats living together breaks out in the middle of your, uh, managing your penalty corner. So there you go. Um, Well, I'm just checking because, like, it happens. It happens. Okay, so the other one that I wanted to show you is not this.

That's a corner. Absolutely. Had to be. Had to be a corner. No referral, of course, because I, and rightfully so. Any referral wouldn't have been overturned there. Korea would have just lost there. Well, they set up now for a penalty corner. And Spain have the chance to fire back to a two goal lead. And there is a green card here for the injector.

The time has run out. He's taken too long. And then he's faked or simulated. To push. You don't have to take it immediately after the whistle. It's it way too long. Calling it, you have to take it immediately after the whistle. You can't junkie and take your time. And so, okay, so this is the first competition that I've seen a green card be awarded for the injector, not injecting immediately.

And since they came out in the briefing. Reinforcing the need for players to inject the ball immediately. Basically it's considered a feint, uh, in a way. And it's an induction because the players, you know, the defenders have gotten ready. They're not waiting for the injector to be available. They're like, okay, 40 seconds, boom.

We know the whistle's gonna go. So they're getting themselves set. They're poised on their toes. They're holding each other's, you know, by the stick and all that fun stuff. We'll So, to not inject the ball immediately is a technique or a decision that's made sometimes by injectors to throw off the rhythm of the runners and try to get an early break or to try to stop their momentum so that when the ball is injected, they're not, they're not quite ready for it.

And so, in this particular case. And this is early. This is, this is the third match. This is day one in Valencia. So there was, you know, this is the time if you're going to do something like this, this is the time that you want to take that step. And they, I'm going to bet dollars to donuts. That it, and actually I have confirmed that it was in their tournament briefing that this is a measure that the umpires needed to take if they felt that it was too long.

And I've been, since the briefing alteration came out in the actual FH slideshow, I've been waiting to see umpires deal with this maybe a little bit better. As a matter of course, I don't see them. Getting, you know, being proactive with the injectors and remedying them taking too long. So this was interesting to see, but it's another example, again, of giving a green card immediately at this level is completely different than the way that we would handle it at our levels.

And I would hope that the very first time that a team lines up and they take too long to inject, you just. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Injector. Let me explain what immediately means. I blow my whistle, or I say play, if you're still doing that. Practice. As soon as I say play, immediately the ball must be injected. Do you understand?

Okay? So, part of it is also that you are having the players responding to your whistle, or your indication of play. Okay. Instead of them dictating the tempo of how everything goes. It's a safety issue, it's a fairness issue, it's all of those things. Okay, so think about how, what kind of strategies you'll use when you're on the pitch to make sure that this continues to be safe and fair because it, it is important and at different levels of play, you're going to have different standards as to what is immediate.

You know, like. Um, I'm an, I'm an injector on penalty corners. And at this point in my career, if I'm able to do anything quickly, it's a miracle. So I might take three seconds, just be like, Oh, I've got a hip cramp. And then I have to, you know, adjust and then I can do my injection and you're going to apply a different standard depending on the level of competition, the skill levels of the players, all that sort of thing.

Okay. I hope that's, uh, that's helpful and clear. Okay. Topic three. Danger versus playing the ball with the body. With the injection. It's a good injection. It's a good trap. With the finish. It doesn't come. And only a long corner because Kelsey Bing.

Injection and trap from India. Here we see a smooth, great trap. Time to take that initial first strike. That

looks like it comes off stick here.

So this will be a much better angle to view it from. Nice and low and set. Oh, from this angle it looks like knee. And because the player is bent down low and it's a shot on target, this could be seen as another penalty corner. Which is so interesting though, because from the first angle it looked like stick.

The second, it looked like knee. Wow, this is close. This is close. Shinpads, it would have been a penalty corner for sure, but this is, this is inches. And I think it's centimetres. Is that the knee or is it the top of the shinpad? This is margins now. This is the grey area of the rule, isn't it? One thing's for sure though, it's not the stick.

It's come off the body of the player. It's, uh, Jillian Waljamuth, American defender, and, uh, That is a close call. That is a big call in the context of the game. Yeah, the player is bent. You have to take that into consideration as well. Was she standing upright and tall?

There was a foot in circle so you can restart with a penalty corner and India keeps their referral. Okay, so what I loved about this play was that the commentators actually did realize how difficult the situation was, but I don't think they really put together all of the things that made this difficult.

And I wanted to run through them with you because I think it's, it's valuable just for us what you Yes, exactly, Dawn. There are so many things to consider here. There's five meters, there's on or off target, the shot height, whether it's first at the BC, whether it's then dangerous, uh, this is everything.

But the first thing that we can even point out really is exactly how challenging this situation is because of where it's happening in the circle, okay? Because it's over on this side. of the D. Oh, that's not working. There it is. Because it's over on that side of the circle, you also have the remarkable challenge of having to look through bodies.

Most likely. Okay, so that's your first problem. And this is where the positioning and the assistance of your supporting umpire can be so important. And having this done in your pre match chat, When I talk about a pre match chat that we're doing at our less professional levels than this, I, we're often dealing with a triage situation.

We're prioritizing in the 10 minutes that we have, what are we going to talk about? In the five minutes we have, what are we going to talk about? And after you pick sides, I think the most important thing to deal with is how are you going to help? Your colleague on penalty corners, what signals are you going to give?

What are you going to look for as a supporting umpire? What decisions am I going to make by default as a controlling umpire and which ones I'm always going to look. And it's so hard. It's so hard as a controlling umpire in your circle to realize that there's a set of decisions on the penalty corner that really you should not even be trying to make the first decision about.

And I will say to my colleague. When it comes to hitting the first runner on a penalty corner, you have first call. I am going to look to you. I might, you know, make something up just to get the players understanding that I'm not checking out of the situation. I don't want to look unsure, but I need your, your view immediately.

I need your help immediately. You are going to tell me whether it's a penalty corner or whether it's a free hit out. And then you're going to explain to me why. You'll be like, penalty corner, it was below the knee. It's a free hit out because it's above the knee. Or it's 23 meter restart because it hit the stick.

You know, whatever gestures. Whatever the case might be, but you give the result first and then you explain it second. So that's the first challenge here. But let's go through, um, all of these things. Um. Oh, Benno, you've got a question about the last scenario. Uh, let's go back to this in a second. So I am going to, uh, star that and I will come back to it after we finish this because look, your girl gets a little confused these days.

So let's just stay on track here. Okay. And then the next thing that we want to deal with is that this is a hit. This is the first shot at goal and it's a hit. So if it's a shot at goal, Okay, maybe that's actually, let's do it in that order. Is it a shot at goal? And I think an argument can be made here as we look at this,

that the angle of that ball and its travel was not going to go into the goal, right? That is not necessarily the definition of what a shot at goal is because a shot at goal is defined as, let's bring these up, if I do it the right way, nope, not the indoor rules. I want the outdoor rules. I think I have the other rules.

Okay. Let's go back to the definition of a shot at goal, because it's always important to go through terminology. Okay. And

here it is. The shot at goal, an action of an attacker attempting to score by playing the ball towards the goal from within the circle. It may miss the goal, but the action is still shot at goal if the player's intention is to score with a shot directed towards the goal. Okay? In my view, this is like, this is, this is all well and good, except there's something to be said for applying that definition a bit more strictly.

When it comes to danger, we are giving the benefit to players that they are trying to get a shot on goal, or a defender, for example, an indoor, is using their stick to block a shot at goal and playing the ball in the air, and that's okay, because they believe it's a shot at goal, even if that goal is going to miss the target.

But when it comes to danger, we don't apply that most liberal interpretation. Okay? That's my feeling. Because defenders are under it anyway. And the whole danger argument inside the circle, I think we have to be applying some common sense and consideration with, to what, as to what players are going through.

Right? And we add on to that that when Plays like this are under video review at the top levels. They will take a very strict view of whether something is on goal or not. They will look microscopically at whether the ball has and sorry, I'm just trying to get this back a little bit,

just a little bit. There it is.

Okay, so when you look at that ball's travel and the fact that it goes off

The, the outside knee, and it, it looks to me like that doesn't fulfill the shot at goal. So you could say, you would have to process in your head, is this an intentionally raised hit that is not a shot at goal? And therefore it's going to be out. It's going to be a free hit for intentionally raising a hit.

Okay. Another argument that you can make here. Another factor that you're going to have to work through is whether the height of this ball, but for striking the defender in the knee, would have crossed the goal line at a height of 460 millimeters or lower. Is it still rising? Would you? infer that its continued pathway would be going upwards at this point, because if you, that height call is very close, very much so.

Let's see if I can get a better view of,

okay, so one of the things that the commentators say, which is, which is fair to say at this moment, um, what's the best, yeah, this is probably the best place to, to sort of pause it, is that the player is crouching. But what's interesting is this player is very flexible and they're crouching, but are they really lowering their knee towards the ground and being in that crouch?

Or have they been able to lower their hips to the ground and their center of gravity is such that they actually are not, there's not much of an, of an angle here. Okay. So when you're assessing what height that knee is, when you look at this player, who's, who's in the goal here. Excuse me, her knee is pretty close to the, to the board height.

And of course we're looking at it from an above angle. So everything is like weird and askew. It's hard. And again, this is where your supporting umpire is crucial in helping you out with this. And again, to me, when it comes to danger and the height of the first hit ball on a penalty corner is a rule about danger, we apply a stricter standard.

So this could be. in this situation, something to look at. And then, as Dawn pointed out, you're also looking at where, how close the defender is to this. Are they within five meters or not within five meters? Not that that's binding interpretation in this case, because it's not a drag flick and we wouldn't necessarily apply that under the penalty corner rules.

It is a, it's a piece of, uh, it's, it's, it's a guidance. It's something that guides us into determining danger as well because if she's within that five meters, then she is not, you know, she's more likely to be interpreted to be playing the ball, tackling, dispossessing, and, and, and attempting to play the player rather than just setting up to block the goal.

Okay. And to me, she's pretty much in line with the nine meter dot. And that ball is coming to her from 14 meters, so she is literally right at 5 meters. Like, wah! Oh, and by the way, you have to see that it actually hits her knee and not the stick. Um, the top of her knee pads are at the same height as the backboard.

Yep. So you did, you, you saw that same thing there go. Yeah, there's the word intention again. Um, which, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna get into this, how tricky it is. Uh, there, and it's still in the under rules, right? Thank you. Do you know how hard it is to flip back and forth and try to sound smart like that?

And to you, the shot looks, looks like it's going to go above the board height. Yeah, it's traveling pretty good. And when you look at it from other angles, and this is, this is the part where you and your colleague are going to go to work together because you're looking side on and you can see the impending trajectory of the ball, perhaps better than your colleague who is standing in line with the whole occasion, who sees the height better than you can at a split second, but doesn't see the overall trajectory in the same, with the same degree of certainty.

Certainty, because there's, there's no certainty here. And yeah, it's very close, very close, very close and good to see you. Okay. So. I wanted just to work through that so that you could see all the things. Did I miss any rules, by the way, in this? Like, is there another, are there any other rules that we could have had to apply here in this one particular situation?

It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. This is a very complex, very complex decision. Okay. I think that's probably all the comments there. And let's look at the poll quickly. We didn't have a lot of polls today. Remember, chill show. That is already heading to Achilleo. And I think the results of the poll are pretty indicative here of just how difficult this is that we've got, um, we've got a nice little 50 percent are saying it's a penalty corner and actually, and when you add up the other two, when you add these two together, you've pretty much got your other 50%.

Uh, some say danger and some say free hit defense for the first hit shot. So yeah, really tough here. The player gets hit is actually taller too, and it looks like her knee pads are above the backboard when she's standing in Tiggle. Um, yeah,

yeah, really complicated. So uh, good luck to all of us in making that decision accurately on the pitch.

Outrageous, right? Absolutely outrageous. Oh, clear that drawing. I think I'll do that. Uh, as always, What Up Wednesday is brought to you by the letter M's, the letters MCP. Oops, that's not supposed to happen. Let's try that. Brought to you by the letters MCP. If you have yet to dive into the MCP course, What exactly is happening in your life, and can I help?

Because this is, this is it. This is the Bomb Dignity. I'm really excited about this, and I, anytime I start doubting what I'm doing out here, trying to coach umpires remotely, when I see umpires having fantastic games, and doing MCP like a boss, like we watched, uh, William on Monday in his debrief, And I just see how efficient the movement patterns are, how effective it is, how the accuracy level is brilliant.

I, it just kind of makes me swoon. It's a little ridiculous. We're having a conversation on the server as well. Uh, or we will be as soon as Voodoo actually puts it in the server. Voodoo, I'm, I'm waiting for you. I'm waiting for you to do it. Asking about the application of MCP principles in indoor. I have a video that I recorded last week that I answer all the questions about.

So I would love to talk to you more about that as well. But I mean, just if you haven't taken it yet, sign up and let's see if I, if I press that button, yes, we go back to this, but what if I do this? And also I'm just going to press buttons and see what happens. The control elevator is live as well. So lots of.

Really nice frameworks, I think, to be able to apply. Systematic, organized, and Anticipatable? No. What's the right word? What's a good word for the players will expect it? Expected! Carding. And personal penalty discipline. Okay? That's all in the control elevator. So Have a look, if you haven't already, if you want to ask questions about it, come to the server and ask, or ask right now and somebody else will, um, will repeat.

Um, and thank you, William. Uh, it has, it has, you don't, you don't have to tell me cause I've seen the evidence. It's pretty, pretty ridiculous. Um, 13, pump up the nine, six. Um, oh, you thought What Up Wednesday was brought to you by the round to the week? I'll just hold on, because we're getting there. We are getting there.

Anticipatory. Anticipatable. Uh, but anticipatory operates on the thing that's being anticipated. So I don't know. And by the number three. Yes, this is so good. Yes. Brought to you by the letters MCP. And the number three. There you go. And, um, yes, Florian. You're happy that you've umpired your first under 16 girls into a final of your region this Sunday.

Congratulations!

I am pleased for you. That is great news.

And I love celebrating. As you can see, the celebration is continuing. But I do love celebrating your achievements, so you just make sure, you know, you let me know, and then I can brag about you. And I know. Uh, yes it is. AdelaSoul3 is the magic number. Okay. Apparently I need to get moving. Our skills session today is reckless as to the results.

Okay. This is where I just kind of improv a little speech. So I'm ready for this. Let's go. We, we had a question in the server as to this phrase, reckless as to the result. What does it mean? Because I do say it a lot. I did a search in, so you can go to FHumpires. com and there's a search button at the top.

It kind of. It kind of gets a little wonky sometimes with the theme, but don't worry, we'll be fixing that at some point, soon. And you could put in a phrase like, reckless as to the result, enter, and you would get You will get a ton of hits because that searches all of the transcripts, which I've added to the posts of the What Up Wednesdays and all these other things that I've added on into the website.

And it's got every time, basically, I've talked about it over the last 70 episodes of What Up Wednesday. So it's a lot. But sometimes you hop into this late, you're, you're not familiar, and you're like, what is reckless as a result? And why doesn't she just say intentional? And here is a little bit of the background on that, and we alluded to it a couple times in some of the other segments about how problematic the word intentional is in a rule book.

And hey, open up the PDF of the rule book and you do a search for intentional, and you'll see how many times that word. is ascribed throughout. But if you've ever had a polite discussion with a player when you have deemed one of their actions to be intentional, whether it's playing the ball off the end line, or it's a tackle, or it's a shot at goal, we cannot read the player's minds.

So in order to come up with a framework that actually helps us make these decisions accurately, and in a way that's predictable. That's what I wanted to say. It's predictable. It's most helpful for us to shift the languaging and the focus to the action of the player who is committing the foul. They are breaking down the play because the attempt at the skill that they're making is high risk for failure.

And they know it's high risk for failure. They are in full control, they choose to try it anyway, they fail, it results in stopping the play, the umpire must redress the foul, they must award a team penalty, but the effect of having to do so takes away more than just

the stoppage, it breaks down the play. So we consider that action to be reckless as to the result of breaking down the play. So, if that tackle from behind should succeed, fantastic, great work, awesome, love to see the skill, no foul, everything can continue. But if the player is wrong, and they attempt something that has a high risk for failure and high risk for danger, and that has an impact, a high impact on the play, then we are going to address that.

And when we look at it through that rubric, that freezes up from having to decide whether that player wanted to commit a foul. Did they intend to commit that foul? No, I mean, they don't ever want to miss the ball. They're not coming in there saying, ah, sorry, let me back it up a little bit. Because there are times where players just come in and they're like, meh, I don't care.

And they just bang their stick and And that's when we can actually use the word intentional. But if that was the only condition we would, I don't know. We'd go seasons without making that kind of determination because, and we end up with this strict application of the English word, intentional in not understanding the effect of the more subtle felts.

The subtle little nudge with the shoulder that just gets the player off stride. The clipping of the heels. The gentle lift of the stick away from the ball. When it's not loud, when it's not obvious, it's harder for us to pick up on. And it's really difficult to look at it through that intentional framework.

Okay, so this is why this idea of recklessness to the result, and it is, for those of you who don't speak English as your first language, uh, I hope this is a helpful, you know, sort of exercise. And if there are phrases that you would use in your own languages, I'd be, I'd be interested to hear them and, and sort of figure out how this all works.

Language is a fascinating thing for me, and I think it's crucial to our ability to umpire Our words shape our actions and our perceptions, and then those feed back into our words. It's all part of the same picture. And I found this to be a much more helpful way of looking at what play needs to be penalized with a higher penalty, with the upgrade, or simply higher penalty according to the rulebook.

or needs to be addressed with personal penalties under the Control Logger rulebook. So, uh, there you go. Hopefully Oh, did I do it again? Sorry. You've been working really hard at it, though. I have. Um, it makes me all of those. It makes me all of those. And the answer is yes. Yeah, Luke, exactly. I didn't intend to play take the attacker's legs out, but you intended to make the tackle.

So it's when they have Control over their body and they make the decision that I am going to go into this slide. So they might not intend to slide into the body of the player, but they intended to go down to ground and took the risk. It was reckless as to whether they were going to not be able to stop themselves, as most players can't when they're in momentum sliding along wet turf, into wiping that player out.

Okay. So that's a really good result. Bye. Very good to see. I hope that explained everything. Uh, at times it was articulate, at times I think I've lost. Anyway, if you want to talk about this more, if you have more questions, if you'd, I don't know, like to see more examples, hey, come into the server and ask.

That's what not only I, but the entire community are there for. So, right, me round up for funsies. I got five minutes. I got five minutes for my new deadline. This is the first one.

Did somebody say ran to the week? Oh, Hey, why is there a poll there? There's not supposed to be a poll. That's from last week. Go to last week's show and find out what that poll's about. Yeah. So I have a Google alert that alerts whenever hockey and umpire are used in the same, on the same webpage, basically.

So I get random things all the time. Often I just get something that is like, somebody mentions ice hockey in one place, and then they were talking about baseball umpiring somewhere else. Google, stop being so damn American. But then sometimes I see little joys like this. So the Pakistan head coach after the, uh, final result in Oman, which saw Pakistan lose in the third place match, which knocked them out of going to Paris.

Said, well, I mean, the article reads, claimed on returning home, uh, that Mr. Sheik claimed on returning home that Pakistan lost to New Zealand because of inapt umpiring. If it had not been for the umpiring, we were in a position to win the match, he said, after losing, uh, 0 4, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's further quoted, they allowed New Zealand to get the equalizer in the second quarter.

When we asked for a referral from the umpire, he said that since there was no camera at the particular spot, when the goal was scored, it was useless referring to the TV umpire. Look, this, this just isn't how it could have happened. Because the umpires, if it's a referable question, and it was within the 23, Refers to the award of a penalty corner, a penalty, stroke, or goal.

The umpires are specifically, especially under the new video, umpire protocols, not to debate whether a referral could succeed or not. They're not there to talk, um, players out of taking the referral even if they're not supposed to, even if it's not an allowable referral, they are have to take it. And then the video umpire will say, no, that incident didn't happen inside the 23.

Therefore it's not referable. They lose their referral. It's clear in the new video umpire protocol. So I have difficulty, great difficulty with the way this has been expressed. I am going to assume that there has been some misunderstanding about the language. And as it gets passed on. From a player who is in a high emotional state in the middle of a game and then later passed on to his coach, perhaps passed on to another few players and then passed on to a coach, the things get out of question.

And then, uh, complaining about the, uh, non neutrality of the technical director, that he wants to protest and ask for a referral but found out he was from New Zealand. How can you post a director from a country who is involved in the match? Well, first of all, The TD, if they are part of a, of, uh, if they are, if their country is appointed to a match, when it comes to the games that happen and their country is involved, they then delegate the TD responsibilities to the, to a technical officer.

So one of the next highest judges in their hierarchy thing, and they do not make any decisions about that. But regardless, it doesn't matter because that's not an appealable thing. So this is completely irrelevant, completely. Um, Sheikh also lamented that several times in the match, the umpires made mistakes and it cost the Pakistan team.

Uh, the, all you have to do is say they lament, lamented that they made mistakes. I'm sure that the umpires made mistakes that cost the New Zealand team, cost the New Zealand team as well. They, they made. They made decisions, like 95 percent of which would have been accurate. Oh, but then Paxton didn't get enough time to prepare for the Olympic qualifiers.

They absolutely didn't. And that team went out and played out of their brains. They were, I was, I was really surprised. Having Watched any time where they've snuck back into and gotten back into an international competition and being able to watch them. This was a, this team absolutely outperformed every expectation that you could have had.

And I applaud the program for being able to persevere the players continuing to train and to prepare and go to this competition when they weren't getting paid by their national association. Oz. is there, uh, as the contracts provide. That should have been the focus of this kind of article, but through a combination of the things that the coach says and then the way that the media presents this, instead of the headline being Pakistan radically outperforms expectations and impresses the world despite all obstacles in their way, all the focus is taken away from the players and put incorrectly.

They're like, illogically and inaccurately on the umpires. And that's not how things should be. But this is what gets headlines. This is what gets people clicking. Because if something is unfair, if there's somebody that they can be mad at, who's an easier target than having to blame oneself, hey, let's go for it.

Hey?

Yeah, it does. It does. There you go. The only vested interest in a TD is whether you're, uh, stumping the money out to, um, yeah, it's, it, it is difficult and I, I really, um, and I know that there are lots of levels of competitions where this happened, um, when they're picking out the technical team to staff a match, then those are always neutral appointments, but, but a TD, or a technical officer, you know, they're not involved in the decision making that happens on their match.

So that's just, that's just baseless and really infuriating. Okay. So that was the first thing that I wanted to, that wasn't even really a rant, was it? I could have done so much, so much more with it. Um, this, we talked about this a while back and I'm just sort of blowing it up here. This was an icons post from 12 weeks ago and I just wanted to happily report that 11 weeks ago I posted this because the question was posed, what do you think?

And I'm like, well, Hey, let me tell you what you think, what I think about this. And I think you should stop using umpiring decisions as clickbait. You don't provide enough information for anyone to make a decision. And there's no facility here to actually educate people on a rule. And I'm not mad at the ratio, 116 likes.

Like that's my best performing angry reply on an Instagram. I often just ignore them. I just don't, I don't want to add because I've just given this, I've just given icons all that engagement. I've rewarded them for what I believe is not good behavior and I regret that. I did have a couple of people, of course, telling me that it was very clear and this was the wrong one.

And the obvious decision was obvious and obviously wrong. Um, congratulations. But how, I'm not saying that this was a correct decision. I don't know. I need to see more than this. And I don't know how many times I've been given a small snippet of vertical, of whatever, of a play, and I've jumped to a conclusion.

And then when I go find the full footage and I rewind it back and I see everything I fold to go, Oh boy, was I wrong. But I'm the kind of person who will say, I was wrong. I'm also now the kind of person who works really hard to suspend judgment for what that's worth. But, Understand, how do we get to decisions?

And if I don't have the information, I'm not going to come to a decision. How's that? There we go. I'm warming up now. I'm warming up. There you go. Um, Oh no, Joel. It's yeah, see, it's not about getting clarification. It's just about getting people angry. You don't have to find nuance or clarity or accuracy or anything like that.

You just say whatever. Feels good at the time and is going to get you clicks. Okay. Uh, the last angry thing that made me angry on the internet was this particular article from, this article from the hockey paper. Uh, I didn't watch, no, I did watch just the clip from the footage because I was like, I don't know what this is talking about.

But here it is. It was umpiring precision, which perhaps cost Poland the chance of winning through to the first Hockey Fives World Cup Final. The fuck? Are you kidding me? Are you actually kidding me?

Instead of saying it was umpiring precision that saved the Netherlands opportunity and applied fair standards to a match so that the team that deserved to win actually won. No, no, that's not it. It's that it cost a team. So I mentioned that I was, you know, it's these kinds of headlines that I see repeatedly from this organization.

They'll put out something really great about umpires one week and I'll be like, I should share this. I should share this. It's an, uh, it's appropriate. It's good. It's a generous celebration. I'm happy for it. All that kind of stuff.

But out of the other side of the mouth. piece of this organization comes to those kind of headlines. This is not a negative on umpires, Keely. It's the rules and the story says as much. To have no four meter frank line is frankly odd. This was also the moment in the match that as the Dutch immediately scored.

I'm like, oh, okay. But this is what, yeah, the rule can be stupid. Hey, by the way, I hate hockey's fives for a lot of those reasons. Because there are weird, stupid rules in it that don't help, that don't keep players safe. The injury rates at that Hockey Fives World Cup were not good. I want to see the stats.

I want to see an exploration of how many injuries per minute per player happened because of the way that the rules are set up with Hockey Fives or because of the turf that they're trying to use and a combination of those things.

Uh, how did I get onto that? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I don't like Hockey Fives. But this is the point is that the attention, instead of saying Poland almost wins or weird rule applied correctly comes to this hockey fives has a weird rule. Instead, it's a false narrative that umpires have cost a team, their, their result with a single decision.

I mean, I know hockey fives goes fast. It's like 15 minutes, a quarter or a half now, instead of 10, as it was last year. And I may have sworn. So this is, you know, this is, this is what we're dealing with. This is the negativity that we're dealing with. And we are often in a position as people who are passionate about a vocation that we're trying to get other people excited about this.

And that's the bullshit that they have to deal with. That's what they have to see. And we deal with this, you know, people getting punished by having to umpire, and how do we force people into doing it? No. That's not the way you get anybody to do anything. You make this the coolest shit you can do with your time.

It's fun. It's intriguing. It's engrossing. It's challenging. It's Mmm. And you don't have to be as fit as players. It's more accessible to more people for that. And we have to strive for the positive of what we do as umpires, and to present that out there. And that is how we capture the, the emotion and the dreams and the aspirations of people instead of making it a thing that costs the people we are trying to serve.

No, I do not accept. I refuse. Okay. That's my, you know, I haven't triggered this for a long time.

That's my rant of the week. Thank you very much. I forgot it was there. And it often misfires so I'm glad it actually worked. Thank you very much for joining in this more mellow and shorter version of What Up Wednesday.

I tried? Is it enough to say that? I tried? I appreciate you hanging out with me and making this fun. Tomorrow starts the European Championship Comp for men and some other divisions start on Friday, other European divisions. It's pretty much chaos for this next month. This weekend is the Men's European Championship.

Next weekend is the Women's. They are happening in Berlin. If you haven't bought your Eurohockey package, I, if it's still available, buy it. If you can just buy the tournament pass, buy it. Because indoor is. Some of the best, most exciting, vibrant hockey you can see, and it won't take you as long to watch.

And, I think truly is a big part of the future of the game. So, get on board, go buy your passes, join up FHU's third team watch parties. Um, do, do I have a, I don't know if I have a thing. Do I have a thing? I have a thing. Um, join us in the third team. And you can come in and experience what it's like to try to keep up with the action of Indoor and explain Indoor rules and how they're being interpreted and applied at the same time.

It's not easy. It's not easy. I'm much better at doing it for Outdoor, but we're going to try because I don't give up. I'm not a quitter. Okay. It was shorter than last week. All right. Ah, you're going to watch some schools hockey tomorrow. Excellent. And maybe some Indoor with us. Who knows? Enjoy your hockey weekends.

Uh, yes, we'll be focusing on indoor for the next little while. And then your girl, along with a few of my favorite people in the third team are going down and going to be at the New Zealand Masters. Like I'm actually going, that's happening. February 22nd is the flight and then the tournament starts on the 26th.

So. I'll be joining the people of the future and the people of New Zealand in some amazing Masters Hockey. Can't wait. So tune in for stories and mishaps and fun from those events as well. And yes, if you don't mind, if you would be so kind on your way out, if you could make sure you hit that like button.

If you're here now and you haven't hit the like button, I don't know, like why are you, are you hate watching? Are you just so mad that you just can't click away?

There you go. Yes, it's going to be Kiwi time. Don't be jealous. Be supportive. Glad you enjoyed it and we will see you next week. Thanks for being here. Bye.

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