#TheBreakdown Ep. 169 | The 2026 FIH Briefing and Serious Misconduct

📅 Mar 10 19.30 GMT
➡️ YouTube

It’s another episode of #TheBreakdown, where we’re following up last week’s line-by-line parsing of the new 2026 Rules of Hockey and getting into the secret sauce of the FIH Briefing.

Next, we’ll look at one of the more recent developments in video referral protocols and see what serious misconduct reviews can teach us about managing our domestic matches and keeping players safe.

See you there!

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⏱ Chapter Markers:
00:00:00 Chair Dancing
00:02:27 Topics!
00:06:15 1. 2026 FIH Briefing
01:02:06 2. Serious Misconduct
01:07:17 NEDvESP – European Championships 2025
01:11:54 GBRvCHN – World Cup Qualifier Oman 2024
01:16:00 ARGvGBR – FIH Pro League Buenos Aires
01:22:25 ENGvESP – FIH Pro League Bhubaneswar 2025
01:28:20 FRAvPAK – Hockey Nations Cup 2025
01:32:19 PAKvMAS – World Cup Qualifier Ismailia 2026
01:36:22 EGYvUSA – World Cup Qualifier Ismailia 2026

Check out when #TheBreakdown will go live.

🟢🟡🔴 🏑

Transcript

🎶

Good morning, good evening. Good. All the times. Welcome. It is another episode of The Breakdown Live. It's good to see you all. Thanks for coming by. Uh, last week was the resurrection, the return of, uh, the, the live stream, which is no longer What Up Wednesday it is now: The Breakdown. And we covered the 2026 rules of hockey and all of the new things in there line by line.

Do I have something? My teeth? No, I'm okay. Sorry, I, you guys weren't gonna tell me. So I had to look myself. We covered the 2026 Rules of Hockey changes. So if you didn't miss, if you didn't catch that episode, um, I will link whatever, but you know how to find it. Go to the channel, it'll be in the live section, uh, the live stream section and your umpiring questions answered playlist.

So go have a look at that. If you're wondering and remember, the rules are not in place until your National Association says so. So that'll be a while for quite a few of us. Hopefully not too, too long. So tonight what we're gonna do is the following, which ties in very nicely to. That sort of thing. Oh yes, Rupert.

Yeah. By the way, um, daylight savings time hit the states and Canada and some of Canada, BC just opted out apparently, um, Sunday. So congratulations, thanks for being early. Appreciate it. This is what we're doing today though. Wow. Look at that. The briefing secret sauce. And then we're gonna do a review of serious misconduct.

So what I thought we would do this iteration with the breakdown is to really break down a concept because I have a backlog of clips a mile, like as long as my arm that, um, hi Elish course. I remember you. Good to see you. Um, by the way, it's March, wait. Do I not know what's March? Um, I have so many clips and I thought it would be really effective for us to group them together into themes that we can explore together.

So I thought I'd take the most controversial one. Not that the call's necessarily controversial, but it's sort of a, a big area, um, impactful things, dangerous things in the serious misconduct. 'cause there's kind of quite a bit of it at the World Cup qualifiers. Um, there's still one going on right now in India on the women's side, but the other three have wrapped up.

And there there were incidents. There were incidents. So a couple of them have made it, made the cut of my clips. But yeah, that's what I like to do. So if you have a request, something that you would like me to cover in the future. That, um, you think would group around a theme, please let me know. Um, we're not gonna do aerials for a little while because that was the stream before the rule stream and I, I know it's, it was a year, but still I don't have to do aerials for a little while.

That's what I'm saying. So let's get this party started. Oh, god dammit. I fixed it. I swear to goodness. Oh, that is so, that is so annoying. Yeah, it's not the 2006 rules briefing. Damn. Um, anyway, what's a show if I don't have, um, some mistakes to go along with it? Oh, so good. So for those of you who may not have seen the inside of the FIH briefing before this document is now easily found on the FIH website. If you go to fih.hockey and you go to the, our documents section, it is under umpiring or under, I don't know. They have, they have two sections that really should be one section and um, but if it's not in the place, you expect it's in the other place.

It's in the other sub menu. You'll find it. I know you will. I have a lot of faith in you, and so you can have a look at it. It's a massive file, so you know, if you have a slow internet connection, please be patient because they've embedded a lot of videos in it. What is really interesting about this 2026 briefing is that it's actually a lot smaller than last year's by probably about 30 slides, which were all aerials. And so the reasons for that will, will come very apparent as we kind of go through things. But, um, the, the first thing that I noticed, and I'm not sure what the significance of it really is, is that there are now three pillars. Let's see if this is gonna work for me. Is this gonna work?

Yes. There are now only three pillars of what are, is sort of our guiding principles, um, when we're out there, not just for international umpires, but for all of us. And presentation was removed from the list, used to be four. Presentation is now gone. So we're looking at the protection of skill, promotion of flow and possession and tackling.

So that's a, it's a bit of an interesting development. I think they're starting to look at things that, um, that simplify our roles and what we're trying to achieve when we're out there. Uh, Rupert you're asking wish they had a version with links to videos on an outside source as well as the embedded version?

Um, yeah, that's, that's an interesting thought. Um, that's something that we could do. I mean, I can do that. I don't really have the time for it, but I could, I could do it.

Uh, that's a, it's an interesting thing. I don't know how much I wanna piss off the FIH by, um, by doing something like that though. Um, basically editing their briefing, editing their presentation file. But that's something I could, I could probably, uh, slide along. So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna skip through things that we've already, um, seen and or we're in last year's briefing, but please do go through this.

It's a very important and very, um, illuminating document. I don't agree with everything in it, but at least there's some guidance there and it's, it's a good starting place to fuel some discussions. Um, what they did with this particular slide, with 3D skills and the example that they have right after it, is that this used to be buried in the back and they've moved it all the way up behind prevention of crowding.

And before we get to anything else, obstruction, aerials, dangerous play, all that kind of stuff, which is really interesting for me because you think when they move something up to a PO position of prominence, that that indicates some emphasis and something they want to draw more people's attention to.

And, and one of the things that you can look at here is about is this particular. Phrase, which existed last year. The use of 3D skills above knee height close to an opponent may be considered dangerous and a free hit awarded against the ball carrier. And it's all about, it can't cause danger or make them take evasive action to avoid it.

So if a player doesn't have an opportunity to take a legitimate evasive action, that could still be considered dangerous, is the bottom line. But they're, they're giving you a little bit of a guidance about above knee height and close to an opponent, but it's also still a may. It's not a will, it's not a should, it's a may.

So there's still a lot of wiggle room in this, but we can be guided quite a bit about this. Th this idea. And when it says close to an opponent, when I describe 3D skills that are dangerous, it's about d are you, is the attacker, the ball carrier taking the ball into the defender's space where they are already occupying?

Because if the attacker is moving away and the defender is falling closely and and cutting into them, who is actually creating the danger there? And it shouldn't necessarily be the attacker's fault if the ball was close to a defender. If the defender is the one who's coming into that space, you might then argue, well, how is a defender going to tackle a ball when it's up in the air if they can't then get close to their opponent?

Well, it's about, um, it's about that balance. Between what is actually dangerous in that case, because if you as a defender are chasing the ball carrier, you're probably not going to be in danger until that ball comes back into your space again. Okay? So I hope that, um, that's a lot of words, um, but might give you something, um, to help on.

And here's just a nice video of an incredible Jay Hook by an umpire. We're gonna go for another, sorry, Deepak. And, um, just some really great play that the umpire doesn't have to get involved with, but that was in last year. Have a look at that. Okay. Um, there's lots of examples about obstruction and stick obstruction.

These all existed last year. So inside the final few seconds, something that was pointed out to me, Sam Ward, trying to make something discussion I had with friends today a way was about. Playing the ball intentionally over the back line and how this section has been in the front of the rules as an area of emphasis that the rules committee wants umpires to pay attention to for the last like 10 years.

And for all the changes that that introductory section goes through every year, it's still in there in 2026. Are we doing a good enough job about intentionally playing the ball of the back line? And maybe this is a topic I should do next week or the week after. Lemme know what you think.

Um, physical foul play. This was still, it's, it's interesting how it's, they've added the, the word physical there and I think they're just trying to indicate that it's not just that something's physical, but it's physical and illegal at the same time and that sort of thing. Nothing that's different. Uh, the slide tackles issue still there now.

Nothing changing. Here's our next change. When they're talking about using the back of the stick. So this is specifically about the backtick hit that they're talking about and they've got these two elements of the criterion. They removed something outta this and they removed that. The ball can also move in an arc.

Okay. That's the goal. That's a goalkeeper. This is fun. I like being able to draw pictures poorly. So one of the things that we've often talked about when we're looking at shots that are hit with the back of the stick is an a, a, a shape to the, the, the, the trajectory of the ball and. I don't mind at all that this was removed because really any ball that raises into the air moves in an arc.

But what kind of arc? And the most important part of it is that the speed of the ball reduces significantly. And I think specifically if this had said as against the, the speed of stick, the differential between those two is the really interesting part. And one of the clues that you can really look at is somebody seems to just take a absolute cover off the ball, but it kind of, it all of a sudden the, the, the pace of the ball after it leaves a stick does not reflect the amount of force that went into that swing.

That's because the ball has been driven into the turf by the back of the stick and taken a bunch of the energy. Off the ball. So a little bit more of that might have been a good help. Um, and I think, you know, it really is, is one of those, um, potential clues. So Harry, sadly, welcome to the live stream. I don't know if we've seen you before, if we've made your acquaintance, but if, if we have Nice to meet you, did that go up?

Yes. So if it goes in an arc, he says, that could just mean the player got under the ball too much. Absolutely, and that's true as well for the, the radically fast stick motion and the ball not moving at the same pace, you can really undercut the ball and it loops up like that. So neither of these are hard, hard, and fast rules.

None of this is a hard and fast rule. Hopefully when a player gets that far under the ball, it should be quite different to see, like, you actually have to use your eyes to see where the stick is contacting the ball as well. The spray up from the turf, the, um, bobbles bounces along the turf. Like, I don't find this to be particularly helpful.

I'm just gonna keep drawing things on this. Um, because you know, if you're talking about this being on the first instance of the ball being driven into the pitch and bouncing up, that's okay. But this, that doesn't, those words don't lead me to think that if, if that's of any help. So a little bit of a simplification, taking something away that could be misleading.

I dunno. Let me know what you think. Um, I think. The, the, the stick swing differential would've been a really helpful thing to, to add in there. Um, and they, they haven't ever mentioned the spray, which is fine because the spray can be misleading because again, a, a stick can bounce into the turf, give off a bunch of spray, um, and not actually bounce that high.

It can, you know, the stick can impact the turf, give a big spray right underneath the ball, as Harry's saying, and just undercut the ball to that extent. So that's not completely, um, the criteria neither. So I hope that helps. Something to think about.

So a little bit of bacca stick. Okay, this is new. Ooh, taking the penalty stroke. Okay. This is a big. Big black liner. They're trying to clarify about taking the penalty stroke in line with the new rule in the 2026 rule. So, so this goes along with the 2026 rule, and I can, I can pull that up because I've got the ability to do this.

Do, do, do, this is gonna take me a, a second or two, so please bear with, but, uh, penalty stroke is awarded procedures I,

I keep forgetting how long the penalty corner section is. Okay. So this is the change that we talked about last week, 13.7 D where the player taking the stroke must stand behind and within playing distance of the ball before the whistle is blown to start this penalty stroke. So they've made it more specific that instead of when they begin the stroke, that was an ambiguous phrase.

People weren't sure, well, what's the beginning of the stroke? Is it when they are ready to go? Is it when they're setting up? Is it when the umpire blows the whistle? And they're saying it's the latter. It's when the umpire blows the whistle. So that's now much more clear. And so they've added this guidance in here and this it's, it's highlighted.

It's highlighted, which means it's very important. Manage it early before the colony stroke actually. Is blown to begin. So it's just like your pound to corner situations where you go through your checklist before the corner starts. The first thing is you're proactive. Okay? First thing is you make your signal and you stand still.

You do that for a good 10 seconds. Okay? A quick 10 seconds, but you stand still. Then you're watching the defenders to see if they're gathering up their equipment. Excellent. They're doing that. The next step you're taking is you go to the injector and you inform them about, if it's the first, uh, corner, you inform them about the whistle and how they're gonna inject.

As soon as you blow the whistle and then you go back to your spot and that's when you start administering the f the feet all around. You start saying, alright, you know, defenders, uh, goalkeeper, I need you to move that back attacker, who's on the. Right hand side of the circle behind me. I need you to make sure that you, you know, get, get your foot back there.

I'll right the stick's fine at the top with the castle right now we can begin. So it's part of your management system to set up the penalty corner. You're gonna have a few things to manage at the beginning of the penalty stroke. You're gonna inform the players, right? We go on my whistle, no questions, no goalkeeper ready, no player ready.

None of that bullshit that is specifically not in the rules. Please don't do it. You're going to make sure that the goalkeeper has their back of their heels at least, uh, hovering over or touching the front side of the goal line. And then you're gonna look at the stroke taker and make sure that their feet are.

Behind the ball. Both feet are behind the ball and the player is set up within playing distance. Now playing distance is a pretty nebulous concept. It doesn't have to be very, very strict, but it is something that is, it know, it, it, it is helpful. Sorry, I've got an iPad that's going crazy over here, so I've just turned it right off.

Um, so it's, it's, it's guidance that they have to be able to not necessarily reach the ball from where they are. They don't have to reach out and necessarily be able to touch the ball, but somewhat close to that. I don't see players really taking the mick on this very, very often because usually three steps is enough on their crossover wind up if that's what they're doing in order to get their penalty stroke off the ground.

So that's what you're looking for. It's part of your setup routine to avoid problems and tough decisions that you don't wanna make later. All right. If you have any questions about this as we're going on, please jump in. I'm about 30 seconds ahead of you, so if you ask a question, it's gonna take me 30 seconds to see it and then I'll pop back into the content, um, after I address it.

So, but go ahead. Okay. Um, aerials, so this is where we now have a few changes. Um. Mostly because we have removed the whole notion of a phase two. There is no phase one, phase two as England hockey like to call it. There's just being, not being within five meters of an opponent receiving, and we still have the ability to in intercept within five meters outside of playing distance and safely.

Those things still exist and then it is. You can close once the ball has been touched by the receiver, and we had the conversation last week as to what touched means. Why isn't it played well? Played is a defined term under the rules for field players and goalkeepers get to do different things, and a goalkeeper could be the initial receiver of an ael, so it makes sense that they didn't confine it to playing the ball, that it's about touching the ball, and especially because goalkeepers can touch the ball with their body, with their helmet blockers, et cetera, et cetera.

That possibility is open. Um, this is nice. This is a cl this is clarity given on what an interception is and what it is not because we, we had some confusion where umpires weren't sure, well, if a potential interceptor makes contact with the ball but doesn't control it. Again, this was when control was, you know, an an issue right underneath the rules.

But if they're not able to bring the ball down into their space, is that an interception? What if they deflect it off to a sideline or over a backline? What if they deflect it past the initial receiver, but they're able to get a stick on the ball? And you would hear commentators say phrases like, well, that wasn't a clean interception, so that shouldn't be allowed.

And that sort of thing. The FIH has has clarified this about what an interception is, and they say it's about you play the ball. So invoking the defined term of what playing is, which is using your stick and touching, deflecting, hitting, pushing, that sort of thing. And it says, um. The ball can be played in any direction, including over the side on a back line, and if you miss the ball, it's not an interception but a foul because the player interferes with the first receiver.

So there's a few things that I think this section doesn't help with, which is, first of all, an interception. The way we colloquial understand it is that there are interceptions that happen well outside five meters, and none of this should apply. Okay? N none of this applies if it's outside the five meters.

So I think it would've been helpful if they had said a safe interception. That is within five meters of the initial receiver means you play the ball and, you know, make that the, the qualifier of this entire section. And I think the other thing that we are missing here is that distinction between playing.

When they say playing in any direction, somebody who is inside five meters and touches the ball but plays it right past the initial receiver, should not be given the benefit of the doubt about that interception because they have interfered with the initial receivers ability to receive that ball. The ball was no longer receivable by the initial receiver if it's played away from them, but if it's played towards them, to me that isn't right.

The way that this is phrased though, I think that's what they intend. So as long as that deflection of the ball passed the initial receiver, like within their playing distance, their playing distance being like, this way, this way, whatever, so long as that's not dangerous, that should count as interception.

Not a huge fan of that. So I'm gonna pursue this and ask some questions about it, and I will come back in the Discord server and, uh, ask about that. Ian. Great. A failed interception is a foul, even if the attempt to do so within five, but not within playing distance.

I'm not sure I understand. Um, when the attempt is within, so the failed interceptions afoul, even if the attempt to do so,

yeah, when the intercept. Okay. Yeah, I'm, I'm not sure Ian. Uh, what your, what your sentence is intending to mean is when a foul is, is a foul, even when the attempt to do so. Uh, yeah, I'm not sure you're missing some words. Come back to me with that. Okay.

And it might be that one of these videos will help clarify this, so I'll just see if I can skip the ones that don't really mean. But when I say that they took 26 slides out of the arrow section, I'm not lying. They took 25 slides out 'cause they had aerial balls examples up to like 20 or something. It was pretty crazy.

There was a lot to sort of, um, a lot to suss. Okay. These are all examples that have been in before.

Okay, let's just see if this one is, well, the Canadian play pant retreated five, and now band is on the run. That's, that's a clean interception. That's easy because he actually controls the ball. That's okay. Oh, let's see what this one looks like. Attacker's, initial receiver, defender intercepts with playing distance.

Have

a chance to break now

there free hit to the attacker. Okay, that's easy. That is definitely within playing distance, so that's a nice clear example to Crum Bush.

Sit again, looking for har gets the penalty corner.

Okay, so we don't see an example of, of the thing that I'm talking about, which is when.

It's outside playing distance, but within the five meters. So it's safe and that sort of thing. But the five meters is being infringed, but the ball does not get taken, um, off in another direction. So we will, we will challenge this. We will look into it. Right? 26 slides have removed at this point. I'm just looking at my notes.

I am not kidding. It's a lot of material. Aye. Okay. All of this is from past years, so we're not gonna go through it and here we go. Um, there's a clarification here that only the defender who passes the ball is permitted to continue to wear their penalty corner protective equipment. Okay. Um. This is the section right here.

No other players of that team, the defending team may interfere while still wearing protective equipment. So what they're trying to do is encourage that just because it's been taken quickly and the defender has taken that pass and it's gone, the rest of the defenders have to get their equipment off and can't be part of the play if the ball turns over that, that's kind of important and could result in some interesting situations.

Okay? And only the defender who passes the ball is permitted to pair wear protective equipment while playing it. Well, who else is gonna be playing it? Um, other than the person passing the ball. But once, so what they're saying is, I guess, is to make sure that the receiver of that pass is not wearing their protective equipment, but then.

It goes further to those who are continuing to play. So that's very interesting. And going back Rupert to the aerial, uh, interception, does that fall under regular dangers? The initial receiver will probably have to take some evasive action? Probably, but not necessarily. So I remember clips specifically that, um, I don't know if they were in the server or I was just discussing them privately with Mike McDowell about times that he had had this in his matches.

And maybe when he watches his own replay, his spidey sense is gonna tingle and he'll, um, he'll be like, oh, I need to watch that. Okay, well I'll tell him to watch the replay. And if he has those examples of those clips, that'll be, that'll be really interesting. And it's definitely happened in matches. I'm not doing a show on aerials.

I'm not doing a show on aerial. But maybe I'll do a show on aerials. I'll go look for it and see if I can find something like that and um, and we can investigate it further and I'll start getting some further material as well. Ian, the aerial throne, two by and two, say blue I am red and I am four meters away from the receiver.

I miss the aerial interception from what the text says I have then felt. Yes. And game starts with free hit to blue. Yes, correct. Which is what it should always have been. They're just making that part more clear. What I'm trying to point out is what an actual interception is and whether that's, um, whether that part is clear, but I still think there's something missing.

Okay. And I'll just wait for your other comment to pop up here where I can put it on the broadcast because we'll finish off your thought. Oh, such a delay. You've got a crown. You're number one. Good job, Ian. Oh, there it is. Uh, so the gamery starts with a free hit to blue. Even if they had received the aerial and perhaps wanted to keep playing.

No, no advantage still exists. So, sorry. So what you're saying is from what the text says, I fouled in the game, restart with a free hit to blue, who has been infringed upon even if they are able to continue to play. No. So there is, um, absolutely even a

managing free hits. Okay. Uh, this is the one I believe.

Okay. Where an attack. Attacker's an initial receiver and there is a five meter infringement,

but advantage can be played, so advantage still accrues. I hope that helps. Bye. Okay. Where were we, Samantha? Good to see you again. It's been a long time. Hey, congratulations on your successful return. Okay. Wait, there was a comment here from Luke. So Luke, they're extending it from no pa, no self pass with protective equipment to no passing to defenders with who are wearing protective equipment.

Yes. Yeah, they're, they're making that crystal clear, so, okay. Um. Just wanna make sure everybody sees that. And yes, Ian, you're very welcome for the clarification, um, you're gonna head and you'll watch on catchup. Absolutely. Everything's always available on replay. The moment this live stream ends, you can watch it all back again.

Not recommended, although you can go skip back to sections that maybe you, you, you were taking a break from or you didn't, you didn't see. Oh, Harry, you wanna backtrack? That's fine. We can do that. I'm flexible. Harry, sorry to backtrack. You saw in Rule nine 50 that says about changing sticks during a penalty corner or poundly stroke.

This happened in one match. What does it mean by stick specification? Okay, that's a good question and since I just read it out loud, I'm gonna answer it right now. So in the back of the rule book, there is a stick specification section and. Basically what it means. Oh, this is what I wanna do.

I can't remember exactly where the stick starts. It's usually where the diagram is. Oh, here it is. Okay. So here we are, we're on page 63 at this point of the 2286 version of the rule book. So this may vary with the rules that you're looking at right now, which are still applying in your local area. Good to clarify.

Uh, so they, you know, there's, there's all the basics about the dimensions of the stick and that sort of thing, but when they mean that the stick no longer meets the specification, it's about things like it being smooth, it being free from perceptible projections, indications, not rough, rid pitted glove, blah, blah, blah.

Has your stick broken? That's what they're saying. So if it doesn't meet this specification because it's broken. You can't play with it anymore. That's the only time you're allowed to swap on a penalty corner or penalty stroke and continuous flat. Okay. So does that answer the question? I think it does. I, there you go.

And none of that has changed. That's been the case for a few years, several years now. Okay. The stick head is still on the stick, as Rupert has wittingly, and you did that a lot faster than I did, but I wanted to show where the source of the Hals specification was. Okay. I just wanna reiterate, this is nothing new.

This has been in for a while, but

this idea that we must be awarding penalty corners. For intentional fouls within the 23 meter area is just a good thing to remember. If you ever get in a situation where you think, boy, I really wish I could just card this reckless foul as to the result of breaking down play without giving the penalty corner, because it's just inside the 23 and it's in the corner, you know, over at the sideline, and it's, it's just not in a very threatening area.

It doesn't matter. And this idea of no personal interpretations also applies when it's this intentional foul is inside the circle as well. I would've liked to see that added. Okay. I mean, they're specifically talking about. Uh, intentional fences within the 23 meter area. But if you had seen, if you've been watching international hockey over the last four years in particular, they've really moved towards the idea that it doesn't matter what kind of opportunity is being presented inside the circle.

If it's an intentional foul, to me, reckless is the result of breaking down play. Then it's, it has to be, there's no personal interpretations. It's got to be a penalty stroke, and you may award personal penalties on top of that according to the RDI, repetition, danger and impact framework, which I talk about in many other videos.

But that is something that we really need to, um. Uh, keep in mind and yeah, Rachel, referring back to the stick specification, they wanted to stop the usage of specialty sticks at penalty stroke, pending corners and penalty strokes, big hooks, uh, extra length, whatever, um, that was going to be okay. And your teammate was just trying to drag flick better?

Yeah, absolutely. Lots of people, Harry, are looking for that little edge, and it's not the stick that helps them hit the ball very much like those ex ultra low bows. Um, those are hard to hit a ball flat with. Um, unless you're a top flight international player, you might have the skill. Harry, I don't. So I do not use an ultra lobo stick, and I don't even think it's a Lobo stick.

I think it's just a mid bow and that sort of thing. So anyway, I digress. I digress. Okay, we are 40 minutes in, right? Hi. Let's skip, skip, skip. None of this is new. Okay, here we go. Um,

this, I think I missed this when I did the actual rule book breakdown about removing the penalty court equipment because there has, there had been an element of the umpire's instruction. So if the umpire has the opportunity to tell you, get that equipment off, you have to remove it. As a player that has been removed out of.

The guidance players should remove their penalty court equipment as soon as they can do so after penalty corner is completed. Okay. And that's been tightened up after it's been completed. If no suitable opportunity to remove equipment arises, they can continue to wear it whilst they're in, within the 23 meter area.

Without penalty, all players must remove PCE before they leave the 23 media area. Oh, sorry. Or when in instructive. Oh,

did we? Because I'm wrong. How did I get that confused? Hmm. Anyway, it's still there.

I'm gonna have to look at that again because I was pretty sure that had been removed. But there you go. It was good to, to go through the PC rules again. There you go. Um, they've, they've got the removal of PCE equipment again and reaffirming again, it makes you think, can I just pause for a second? Pause.

If we have to have so much guidance about penalty corner equipment, are we possibly getting into a situation where we're majoring in minors that really there's a better solution for this? Like not having penalty corners anyway? Um, reaffirming, reaffirming all the elements of 13.3 n and this part about the self pass or if the self pass, um, uh.

Which they indicate common sense. The self pass is moving with the ball, not just a little push to pass the ball, which we see players do because for some reason they don't wanna set up their feet properly. And so that means they need to push the ball away from them a little bit so that they can do their big long sweep hit.

Don't get me started on that because I think it's a terrible skill. Um, just reaffirming what we do with that, that it's a free hit if it's outside the circle and a PC if it's inside the circle. So it's not an upgrade in any of those situations.

And yes, we've talked about this Alexander, as I mentioned last week. It's one of my things that I think is really important. What constitutes penalty corner equipment needs to be more clearly defined. There you go. And this is something for you. Oh, you had this question last year, Rupert. Uh, you're glad that it's more clearly defined as to who needs to have, who is allowed to, to play with the equipment when they are making a pass and who is not.

Okay, cool.

And that's just a video that shows it not very exciting. Um, wow. It's more again, uh, what you remember that time at Bandcamp when I said that there's a lot of slides that are removed in order to provide some, to simplify things and that they don't need a bunch of slides for it. They've all way too many slides for this.

Okay. Defending players do not, but this part, this, this could have been added to the last slide and you could have deleted this whole thing. Defending players do not need to be in possession of the ball for a free hit to be awarded if they're wearing PCE outside the 23 meter. Okay. So they don't have to be playing the ball.

They could be close to the ball. This is an absolute penalty, as we like to call it. It's an absolute rule and it's just,

ugh,

it's, it's not good. Um, yeah, slight, ah, yes. So it was a slightly changing the, the laying around the defender. Yeah. See, and that's, that's fine, but they're saying that one little tap is gonna be okay.

What's the difference between that self pass versus the tap one? One singular sensation. They touch it more than once. They're pass, they're self passing it. There you go. I've just declared it. I hope I'm right. There you go. Um, no, I'm, I'm really sure, Rachel, that they could do this. After all, they've gotten very, very comprehensive with, uh, face masks.

So there you go.

Okay, so here's an example. Switches of a player. Yes. We'll, not crossing the 23 meter line still goes to the right hand side. Pc. Good running from Sima, it was Maria. Okay. Where she stops just short, smartly.

Okay. And. Um, I'm not gonna show this slide because, um, I'll get a take down because of the content, because it's from the Olympics, but it does show knee equipment being encompassed in the idea of PC equipment. Okay. Which I think is fine if that's how we're gonna apply it, but let's have that defined under the rules.

Okay. Of course, this is new because this has all been added into the 2026 rules about throwing the PCE. It strikes an opponent and umpire any other person outside the field of play that it is a yellow card if the person is struck on or above the knee in a normal stance. So if it's a photographer that gets hit, say on their.

Waist, but they're in a crouch and their waist is below their knees because they're one of those action photographers. I could never do that. That wouldn't constitute that sort of thing. And this is interesting because we had this discussion in the server, and I think I'm now wrong, and I hadn't noticed this when I reviewed the briefing.

Preparing for this, if the person is struck below the knee, the empire can decide based on danger if any personal penalty is needed.

It doesn't talk about the re reward of a penalty corner though, or a face, or sorry, or a free hit. If it's outside I, I would've thought that this could be. Absolute. But there you go. So I'm gonna go back in the server and change my answer, um, while whilst admitting that I was wrong, because that's not what I, I asked the question and to powers that be, or people who know better than I do.

And that was the answer I got back. So that's interesting.

So, if at the time that the play has been stopped, this just reiterates that if it's outside the circle, it's restarted with a free hit. If it's inside the circle, it restarts with a penalty corner. So you as an umpire now have a discretion when the PCAE hits you below the knee as to whether you are gonna give a penalty corner and a yellow card.

It better be really dangerous. Okay. And then, um, obviously they put the exception about rule 12.4, which is that the removal action prevents the problem scoring of a goal. The ball hits the PC that's lying on the ground after it's hit somebody. Okay. Good stuff. I think that covers that. Um, is this the cat incident?

Hang on,

it comes.

Yeah, it is Lina. So this is good trap

on the edge of the

side. Click the one that really started it all

when, uh, cat got split open

few occasions off, out outta the program.

You can see here in the bottom here.

Where's that?

Oh, Jesus. Getting hit. Okay. And I did a couple live streams where I showed that clip, so well done. FIH. Okay. See you. Uh, nothing new there. Nothing new about, sorry, these slides, but I'm gonna just slow down and take a second because I think a lot of people aren't aware that these exist and it's decent.

I think there's. More simplified ways of being able to explain this, but have a look at it because these are green card offenses. Examples off the ball, minor physical offenses, playing the ball after the whistle with low impact on play. Minor physical offenses, breakdown with low impact by deliver use of feet, body, back of stick.

Every single player and coach who yells at me when I give a green card, when somebody's used their feet deliberately in a low impact situation.

I got the briefing on my side, bitches. Okay? Um, we're not much on this. This could be varied by your regulations, so don't, um, don't necessarily look at that. I don't love that being in the FIH briefing because it can be varied by their regulations as well, and criticize and crowding the empire. Okay? This is very, very good.

And yes, Luke, I still wince every time I see. Um, can take that as well. And yeah, she, she did keep going Alexander, until the foul. She was probably in a little bit of shock and the blood was probably dripping down and she didn't know if it was blood or if it was sweat or anything like that. The first time something happens to you like that on the pitch, you, you, you just, you just dunno what to do.

Okay? So it then goes on to the five minute yellow card offenses and now we see high impact breakdown, a play with high impact or repeated, um, by intentional use of feet, body or back of stick physical fouls with body stick repeated offenses. RDI framework, okay, RDA framework. Uh. 10 minute yellow card offenses.

High impact, deliberate breakdowns with no regard to player safety. And I think this is the no regard. So high impact, high danger, that could have covered that physical fouls, dangerous tackles that ground or trip players, including sighting attackers by tackles by both attackers and defenders. Except defend, uh, attackers can't tackle they're ball carriers, but that's okay.

Repeated. So RDI, okay, that's where I got it from. I didn't make it up. I took it from the FH briefing, but it's nice to have these, it's nice to have these, screenshot them, put them in your photos album. Have them there. Okay? And, um, Foxy, if I'm saying that correctly, I hope that's remotely close. Uh, team not ready.

Um, after 40 seconds, who do you give the green card to? Uh, the player who's the last, but you must make sure that this is part of your local regulations because in England, this is not how we manage it. Okay? So just make sure you know what is supposed to happen in your area. Okay? This is a very international specific element to the briefing, which is why I, I wish it wasn't in there because the rest of it applies.

So much of this applies to everybody. Okay. So there you go. That is everything. And we are at, you know, slide 53 is the end, and the old briefing was like 79 or something like that. Lots and lots of more. So they've really done a, a nice job. And it just goes to show you, I think, how incredibly effective the aerial rule is, the new aerial rule in simplifying the decisions that we need to know about.

So, uh, Rupert excellent question here. Is there any reason why they don't give examples definitions of red cards?

'cause they don't wanna, and I, I think part of that is because, well they're, they're sure not gonna show any clips of it because they'll get absolutely ripped by whatever national association that player belongs to, by the way.

And, um. Sorry, I got distracted by looking at the next question,

and I think part of it is that they're concerned about setting, uh, norms that can't be enforced cross-culturally. Okay. I, I'm willing to do it. I think it's something that, you know, I can advocate having umpired in many countries and been part of domestic setups in two countries now I have no problem with that.

But also I'm a westerner and my orientation is towards Western liberal ideas. So things like, if I heard a homophobic slur on the pitch, to me that's a red card. Anything that, that is a, um. Is a lawyer against a disadvantaged group like that identifiably, um, I'm gonna deal with in that fashion. Perhaps they don't think you can do that in many other, in, in all areas of the world.

So they're not willing to put that out there. I think that's that. Okay. And so, so this is interesting, the, the, um, uh, the question from Ben Nickel, good to see you buddy. Um, is there a set time in England rules for how long defenders have to get ready for not by, um, not in every level. So what Luke is talking about, um, that no time teams must not unduly delay the taking of BC that refers to the level that he's umpiring at and not the level that everybody's umpiring at.

So you have to check your local regulations, not just your national ones, but your actual competition regulations. Okay. And yeah, there's no clips of other types of cards, Rupert, but at the same time there's examples of card situations, uh, in clips under the different sections. So there's a slide tackle one that's your 10 minute yellow.

There's um, there's, there's a few others that would be greens and yellows that are through the slides, um, that they didn't specifically tease out there. So you can see what they think there. Or you can look at something like, oh, can I do this?

You can get on the control elevator. This is my course where I, um, outline management approaches to the game, including my world famous RDI framework, repetition, danger impact, which somebody actually said actually, uh, yeah, I was talking in the South Central Monday mixer. And the order of DIR actually really works because danger is independent of everything else.

And then, so if you have no danger, you can set that aside and then you can go for the impact and then you can go for the repetition. And that order actually is really good. So I might have to change it to the DIR R framework, the DUR framework. Anyway, um, that is, that, is that the.

Back, back to this scene. You can tell I'm out of practice because every time I see something, it distracts me or I have to press a button. I don't know what to do. Whoa. Okay, let's move on to our next topic, which is serious misconduct is just not funny. God, I'm such a jerk. Okay. Oh yeah. There was a reason I was on that screen.

The reason I was on that screen was because I was going to do this and I was going to show off the video umpire regulations from which this arises. So if you've been, uh, good to see you, Rupert. Thanks for coming by and thanks for your questions. They were very helpful. So we're talking about serious misconduct.

As an element of the video umpire regulations. Now, you may have noticed that 99.5% of us are not using the video umpire in any of our domestic competitions, so you might wonder why is this relevant? Well, it helps us frame and look at what would constitute misconduct that we have to deal with sometimes off the ball, but not all the times off the ball.

And it gives us some ideas of the things like what Rupert was saying. Where are some examples of yellow cards? Where are some examples of red cards? Well, we're gonna get into some of them. And so what I was gonna just cover off here about, um. But the, the, the referral process is that the only, the umpires are allowed to refer for, uh, serious misconduct.

It cannot be requested. So anything that the teams ask for has to be associated with a penalty, coron, a penalty, stroke, or goal decision inside the 23 meter area, umpires may self-refer for serious misconduct, and the video umpire is to give advice about whether a, a temporary, permanent su suspension should be awarded.

And it's not stipulated that it has to be in the 10 minute yellow card range or the red card range. And then at the end of the section, we have. In this appendix, serious misconduct refers to any conduct considered to be a level two or level three offense under the FIH code of conduct or serious or physical offenses referred to in the rules of hockey, or when a player intentionally misbehaves in a serious manner as referred to in the rules of hockey.

So we've reviewed all the rules of hockey. You might be wondering what's the FIH code of conduct? I can help with that 'cause I have the FIH code of conduct here. This is the, the most recent in the FIH top tier tournament regulations. And there are different regulations for different specific competitions like World Cup qualifiers.

They have their own regulations, but these appendices are pretty much in place. Um, they vary things like pool play and how. Draws are resolved and things like that. And, but these sort of matters are still in there. So I'm not gonna go through this in detail because it is really long. It's quite a bit longer than it used to be, which is quite interesting.

And Steven, good to see you. Um, when you look at the sp at offenses that are in level one or level two, sorry, level one, we'll just ignore those. But specific offenses that are level two are things that somebody would be suspended for, for a minimum of, of two matches, is something you can sort of think about.

But you've got things like verbal exchanges between players, could be an example of serious misconduct, um, language or gestures. Um, obviously serious public criticism. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm looking at pitch things that could be there. That we, that we see. And then there are, um, level three offenses, which are even more, and we've got physical assault, active violence, um, on or off the play at an international event we have, um, spitting towards another participant.

We covered an incident like that. God, how long ago was that now? A couple years. That sort of thing. So it's a bit of a help, but it doesn't fully cover everything. So I thought it would be interesting to go through some examples that I've seen in the last few years starting with, um, an incident that wasn't

I I sub time.

I haven't seen anything. I will go for my own. Have you seen

I watch it on the replay. Oh, I can see. So that the Spanish are looking for a deflection and this is now, there may actually be whether he's lost his footing on the wave and they're fighting and that we start to get into yellow car territory.

So this is gonna take, there may be more to this note I don't want

and the potential yellow

scar. Ah, there we go. We heard Benin talk about a potential yellow card.

So Vernon Mac, car of Croatia is the video on by head. We watch it again.

I think he's lost his footing.

Apologies to the family of, uh, develop.

This was actually Y Janser who took the hit there for the team. Easy mistake to me. Yeah. Developer has a white headband and, and fluorescent green shoes.

It looks, looks to me because though Mark Rainer has tried to go around Janssen. As he stepped off his right foot. Foot, he's lost his footing

slip.

He slipped.

Slipped. Good. That is why we're here. Yeah. You, you, happy free, but no.

Accept the, uh, decision.

Okay. So happy to take your thoughts on this. Um, anything that you notice about that? I think the languaging of that whole incident is, um,

is, is okay. But what I want to sort of draw your attention to is the truly accidental nature of this. This is a hot day. It is regular footing. And the, the way in which this player slips, it's not. Sort of normal and yes, a free hit. Um, Alexander, you're asking, was a free hit awarded there, a free, free hit for the defense and Yes, it absolutely was.

The question that then got referred up is, do I need to add a yellow card for the danger? And I had an incident on Saturday in a match where the pitch was very overly wet and it's not a very good pitch in terms of like its condition. It's very slippery and players have been wiping out all game. And close to my sideline, a player came in quite vigorously straight ahead and his feet went out from under him.

He took out the ball carrier that he was intending to put pressure upon and there was a collision that looked. A lot like that, except with the two feet going in and I awarded a five minute yell card for that. Okay. I didn't deem it as being reckless as to the result of the, like, the danger that existed.

It didn't fulfill all of the tenement 'cause he didn't intend to go to ground, but he was reckless. Sorry, I didn't say that very well. He didn't intend to go to ground, but he was reckless as to the danger that he caused because everybody knew, like this was well into the game. Everybody knew that the footing was terrible and he didn't take due care.

That is different. And the, the way that the, the Spanish players, he's trying to actually go around him and just really, just really accidentally loses his footing. So there's a difference between accidental and negligent and malicious and talked about this. Mentioned it last week, someday, I'm gonna get around to that video.

This is in the accidental care category. What I dealt with on Saturday was in the negligent category. So I still wanted to hold that player responsible for the danger that was caused. And I felt that was important in the right message to send. So something to think about when you're looking at forms of misconduct.

Okay. Feel free to ask any other questions about that. Okay. I'm gonna go to this

on the right goes to Sam Ward. Ward, looking for the deflection and Sheley. Shipley's just shoveled it. Past

ward's been hit on the run through. By the looks of it.

It's really difficult 'cause if you've got a number one runner coming hard or less injects dead straight. Walls come through it and it looks like he's just taken a whack on the way out. Stumbled the number one brother stumbled. Just caught him with a stick on the way through.

Yeah. There's nothing malicious in this.

He, he turns his back and just trips over his own feet, doesn't he? His fish

with the slip here we see it. So he is just trying. Yeah, he just tripped over himself. I mean, there's nothing Sam's been hit. Absolutely, but it's completely accidental. 'cause the player is falling over as he's hit him. So, to me,

and not looking at him,

the players turns here, he turn there, he's just tripped over.

There's, there is nothing in the middle of that. That should be a penalty to go on.

Yeah. The hands have gone up, haven't they? Just to try and balance himself. He sticks the hands out here to try and balance himself. But his,

his feet have gone

pretty

much both ankles. His feet stops. Yeah, pretty. Both ankles have rolled over.

Sam ward's been been hit, but even then the whole player's gone. He's been caught with a stick. That's the problem. And so the stick could be considered to be high. He potentially feels that he's been given a right whack round his kneecap. Oh.

I just,

okay. So unfortunately because of the editing, like the, the, the directorial decisions, it was hard to show you, but the, the matter did get referred by Tyler clink up to the video umpire who recommended a 10 minute yellow card in this instance. So what for you would be the difference between what we saw in the first clip and what we see in this one?

What sort of issues are different? I think one of them is that you have a, a situation where you have a vulnerable player, the drag flicker, and nothing, even though he sort of trips over his own feet, he's in a position where he's. He doesn't start to fall down until after he hits the, um, the drag flicker, you know, with, with his stick as he's turning around and he's in control of his body.

Sort of up until that point, the way that I see it, what responsibility do we apply to this player more so than what we would apply to the first player in the, the attacker, in the clip that we saw earlier and. Charlie's right? There's nothing malicious in this. He certainly didn't intend to do it, but was he responsible for taking more care?

Was he negligent in not taking more care in this particular instance? And to me, I think a 10 minute is a bit much. I think a five minute would've been appropriate if you saw this happen elsewhere on the pitch. In the course of play, a negligent action that caused a blow to a player's knees like that with their stick.

You'd see quite a few five minute yellows for that from the standards that I've seen over the last, you know, seven, eight years. So, and that is a possible remedy. I think for a while we thought only 10 minute EL cards could get awarded for Dean for serious misconduct, but, uh, but not necessarily. There's nothing in the regs that.

Precludes a five minute yell card from being awarded. Okay. But feel free to jump in with your thoughts and I can certainly come back to the next one.

Et

Howard. Good strength from Golan Howard gets rattled at Robertson. Golan is really hurt and this is really negative news from Argentina.

Oh, Tess. Howard's stick swung round. So Gani instigates the body contact, but then look at this as Howard Falls, stick comes round. Yes,

we are looking for a misconduct conduct in the middle, anything in the middle of the field.

Okay. I have an answer for you. I understand it was the dangerous use of the stick.

So I suggest a yellow car of 10 minutes from the G player,

right? So this one's from a few years ago, and what I find is interesting, um, I think, uh, I don't know Alexander, if this is the one, if you're, if you're talking about this particular incident or the stick comes around as you're talking about the, um, the GB China game, let me know. Um, let's see.

Ben with the last PC collision clip would play restart with a bully or a pc. Retake here. Uh, yeah. Hi. Welcome to live. Um, in that particular instance, the ball had gone off the field of play and I think it was a 50 meter restart, no foul occurred during the progress of play that would've disadvantaged anyone.

So it wouldn't be a PC retake. So no, no matter what the commentator said, ignore them. 'cause they're wrong, that a PC was not on the table in that situation. Um, and it doesn't need to restart with a bully 'cause the ball was outta play. So it would just start with the, um, with the out of bounds decision that Tyler made, which I believe was a 50 meter.

Um. So you, you saw what happened in the, in the subsequent uk. Okay. So Ben, I hope that answers your question. That helps. Um, so this one, um, the more I've seen this, the more I think that, um, perhaps the incorrect result was arrived at. And the first thing that I would point you towards in terms of processes, why did this collision happen?

Or how did the, the stick end up being used dangerously? And it's because that player got broken down and there was a foul that. Occurred that should have been dealt with. It's, yes, it's the end of Q1, but that is probably at this juncture and maybe they could have played on, but the physicality of that tackle needed to be dealt with, the tackle by the defender needed to be dealt with.

And that's easily a green card. Now, when you watch it in slow motion, there looks to be like the, the, the attacker is tumbling and her stick picks up more momentum as she moves around. So you, you know, it, it's this notion that from, you know, a couple of these angles, it looks like she's added more steam onto it.

But

when. You know, are you expecting a player to drop their stick? First of all, is it unreasonable for them to keep holding their stick? Would it be normal for a player to try to hold onto their stick because they wanna jump up and rejoin the play as fast as possible and she can't see anything at that point?

Her head is tumbling, her body is tumbling. Is she being negligent in the way that she is falling from getting collided with in a reckless manner by the defender? And to me the answer is no. So when we're working through our process, when we see this and we're thinking about, do I need to give cards for the, the actions of the attacker in this, you wanna get together with your colleague?

Don't just do this over the radio. You're in a stop time situation. At some point, I hope you're gonna stop time at the next instance that you can get together your call and say, right. Let's step through this sequentially. What happened first? The first thing that happened was there was a breakdown tackle by the defender.

It was physical. It knocked the attacker offer feet. What's the appropriate remedy? Okay. Now, given that, what's the next thing that happened? The next thing that happened is the attacker stick, hit the defender. Can we ascribe any negligence to that attacker for that use of the stick? And you may come up with, you know, different answers of course, but don't forget to step through all of it, because when you get to cause and effect, it changes the negligence question, doesn't it?

So. I hope that helps in terms of, you know, how are we gonna look at this together and how should we have that conversation with our colleague and make sure we get to the best result that protects the safety of the players and shows the players that we are there to make sure that they stay as safe as possible.

A little bit bizarre, and there've been a few of them. Okay. This one, I know we're getting to the end of it, be, or we're in the middle of it bunch. There's a, in the middle of

the park. What happens, comes forward here, clappers,

see from that angle it's very difficult

to see. It's, they've gone into

each other.

It's Gaul

there, it's Gaul and it is

uas Alva there. From his facial expression as himself and go make contact. It just looks like he's not seen him.

I, I agree. And we've seen a few connections like that today. It hasn't been the, the cleanest game in terms of slightly messy stages within the game. And that's not saying players are playing necessarily dearly.

There's, it's been physical. It has, it's been quite brutal at times. Now this is a taller player in Zal sos James Gaul that is given a yellow card for a foul as opposed to Aldo. And, and Gaul just says, okay, fair enough. And Zal you saw was the one as

Right. So to give you full context, full color, what happened on this play is that Spain went through and scored, or sorry, England went through and did they score?

I. They gave up the ball, Spain went through and scored on the counter attack on this, and then, uh, Ahmed went back to, uh, look at that collision. And,

and so the, the initial scenes related around it just didn't show the incident at all. So that's why I trimmed it off. Sorry. I get myself confused at times when I'm watching these things. Um. This is, this is one where again, it's, it's a off the ball situation where I think we would be really tempted because the goal was scored.

To not think about, do I need to go back and deal with the misconduct that has happened in the collision? We'll say, ah, well Spain scored so it's fine. You know, we were able to play through the advantage. Nobody was disadvantaged. It actually cleared out a lot of space through which the Spanish player was able to pass the ball straight through the middle of the pitch and, you know, goal scored.

But in order to address the feelings of the players so they can understand that, yeah, we're there to see all the things that happen off the ball as well, that don't change the course of play, but we're gonna address dangerous things that happen in collisions that happen. What's interesting about this is that you've got.

Both players falling down, and you may have seen this at first and thought, oh, the Spanish player has wiped out the English player. Well, there wasn't a lot of reason for that English player to continue running in that direction when you see from the overhead angle, instead of stopping or peeling away or anything, he just continues along that path and puts his body in the way, in the form of a pick in essence.

And it, it causes something that was dangerous enough now that ended up being a five minute ill car. So we're starting to see an example of serious misconduct that doesn't need to be in that 10 minute or, uh, worse red car territory. And I think it's the right, uh, decision here. It's very unusual for. Uh, a defender to, to pick off.

'cause usually a third party obstruction is, you know, attackers creating space by running a pick play. But it, it was the case there. It is just physical interference. We don't even have to call it third party obstruction. It was just physical, inter interference and a dangerous sense. So again, you want to, you wanna work as a team to look at and walk through the physical contact after the Goldman scored.

And what I would hope here is that right at this moment when the ball was being picked up by the, um, by the attacker. If you are the controlling umpire, if you're Achmed and these, and the Spanish are about to barrel down into your circle, you're like, bye, because you gotta go because there's gonna be some big decisions you're gonna need to make about 60 meters away, and you need to be on the move.

So what I'm hoping is, especially because if you're using the rectangle of responsibility, that that is more of a backside play that you're supporting. Umpire is inside the pitch a little bit, a lot in in this case, and is able to pick up the action there. And they have the right field of view as you, as the controlling umpire are barreling into your circle to look after what happens, which is a goal.

So picking up these incidences involves understanding fluid trade-offs when you're gonna. Move off and you as a supporting umpire over the radio can be that person saying, you go, I've got the back of the play. You go and you need to be dealing with this and understanding what's happened. You get together, you talk about it, you get to your right result.

Hey, I

stick. And there is

a connection just running through these

touches. Araz, no,

let talk first. Okay. Okay. Your player ran into that. This player was Trump the ball. Okay. No, he did not swing. He did not.

Check, I will check for serious misconduct. Okay. I'll check. I'll use my serious stop. No, I'll check. Just to make sure there's nothing for me. It's a free hit. He's scrubbing the ball. Hey. No, no. Hey, hey, hey, Nick. I, I, I, I'm checking again. Listen. Listen. Now's not the time for questions. Now's not the time. The apologies, not the time for questions.

Can you talk? Thank you. Your voice? Yeah. We're gonna take the whole situation.

Okay. I'm not sure how much you heard of all that, but this is one of those situations where there's some specificities about the video referral process that obviously don't apply to us, but there's a few things to note here.

First of all, um. It's very difficult in this age where we have interception attempts that can be legal within five meters of the initial receiver to know when we need to step in and can we get in there quickly enough to prevent the danger that does occur. Here. You've got a defender who is attempting to intercept the ball.

Let's give him the, the benefit of the doubt there who uses his stick and could have struck the, uh, attacker in this situation. And then you have the attacker who, um, is attempting to show that he's still in contention with, um, for the ball. Is he truly the initial receiver in this case? Not sure because we we're watching this, um, this facial strike incident and blue did swing a little bit, but.

It certainly wasn't. Well, you'll, you'll see in a minute what's truly a, a big swing of the ball. Um, when this went to referral, the result was no serious misconduct. And I think there was a lot of muddying of the waters and looking at who's at fault at the aerial. So what the controlling umpire decided in this case was that there wasn't a clear initial receiver that both players were moving into the space.

Neither was, uh, it, as it were. And in that case, can you make a determination to be able to blow your whistle more, uh, more quickly? I mean, everybody would would wish for that after they see something like this happen. But, um, but yeah, it's, it, it, it is. I. Difficult. Had they gone with something like a five minute yell card on in the situation, or even a 10 minute yell card, I would not have been surprised either.

I was surprised in the moment that nothing, you know, came that this was considered to be no serious misconduct because you have to be aware of, you've got eyes on the player coming in. The defender does not have eyes on you. The, as the attacker, the attacker's got eyes and they have to be responsible for the use of their stick in that situation.

So, um, I think, I think you're right. He swung enough, he swung enough to cause a little bit of danger.

Oh, oh,

oh, now, oh,

that's, that's gonna hurt in the morning.

Yeah.

Well, the Ampas got some, if you squeamish, look away,

we've just seen a yellow card, and that will be for the dangerous play of the swing at the raised ball

under Jeffrey Ness down there rubbing his head. I, I'd be doing a bit more than that if I was, uh, if I was him,

first of all, again, as ever, let's pay attention to Oh, the player. Yeah, that is, I wonder if that what length of yellow card that is. Oh, goodness me. Let's hope

that's horrible. Look away now if you're screamish.

Yeah. Oh, ouch. So that'll be Hamza. That's off for a minimum. That's 10. We can see the signal from the pitch from. Jonas Fantech and, and Nick had,

so I've had a couple conversations with people who saw this, um, at the time, this is just from the tournament that wrapped up in Malia in Egypt, uh, last week, and giving a 10 minute yellow card is not an unexpected result whatsoever. But it raises questions for me as to what a red card could possibly mean in this, uh, in this situation.

Um, because as, as quickly as you're trying to blow it, and I, I believe that the umpire blow it blew it fairly quickly. At this time, you've got a defender who is not facing the attacker and. Swinging a stick and there's potential danger in that as well. But you've got an attacker who can see exactly what he's doing.

And in this situation with the high risk of serious, very serious injury, I mean, there's just no cause for the full blooded swing. And if we felt that the last clip that we saw could have been a 10 minute yellow card, why is this not more? Okay? We often look at red cards as needing to be violence, and that is absolutely one of the categories.

And we talk about violence often off the ball, something that is not hockey. I don't believe that that's hockey, even though the ball was technically. Possibly still in play. You do not swing like that at somebody's head. End of story. And had this been a red card, I think he would've had the right result there.

Um, and yes, blue absolutely it, I mean, there could've been, it would've been awful to give, um, a 10 minute yellow card to somebody who gets split open like that. But you, you might have to in order to equate. But if he gets a 10 minute yellow card again, where is the line between what is negligent and what is malicious?

And this may be the line, and when I say maybe, I mean it is the line for me.

Good pass. Oh yes.

Oh, that's a beautiful goal.

Finish.

Well, that's broken. A few Egyptian hearts. They've had to be patient.

They do. And first and foremost, we've got an injury here, but beautiful finish. And Mayo also had not an easy finish.

Not an easy finish at all. He's taken

it very well. There's injury just there, but that's takes a lot, a lot of skill to finish past the keeper into the bottom corner.

I felt the keeper got his, got his feet. This is my

referral, but I got looking for serious misconduct out here. Okay,

well this is far,

well, from what I saw, it's Pat Harris in the process of making an elimination, which I think

guys, yeah, I'm just watching. See? Yeah,

that's the incident.

Yeah,

position come in.

Yeah. I just want to perfectly sir,

US player use the elbow on the face of the Egyptian player. So the number five, he gets yellow card in 10 minutes for misconduct. Can you repeat that please? So the number five of us, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Garrett,

this is not good news. United States at, at,

at all.

Ga can you hear me?

There's the elbow going up. We hear you. We hear you.

Okay. So number five of the US, US used this elbow to the face of the different player. Okay? Did you get that? Yes. So against gets a yellow card and 10 minutes sit out

and the free

out and the free out to Egypt.

Right? So because this foul occurred. In the course of play, it does affect the award of the goal that happened afterwards. Um, this is a little bit small, so I might be able to, no, I can't, I can't get it bigger. Um, we had some discussion in the server about this one, but I felt, um, very, very sure of the 10 minute EL card being given here because of the high danger of the, we'll, we'll call it the negligence.

Um, there wasn't much reason for an elbow to be up that high with that much force, especially because the ball was on the ground and we talk about sticks not going overhead. Um, the stick didn't need to be raised to that point either, and that it was in that action that. Took the elbow around lifting the stick off the ground and, and going around.

So, um, I thought this was a good application of a 10 minute yellow card as well. And it's very tricky because if you're the controlling umpire, you're watching for an obstruction, you're watching for feet, you're watching for a stick block, you're watching for a lot of things that are happening down on the ground.

So actually being a little further away being across is gonna give you more of a view, but you can sort of see from that angle right behind that the controlling umpire was likely blocked from that precise moment because of the angle. Um, is, is there. And yeah. Um, Alexander, when you say red's on the table there for you as well, I think that that isn't, um.

That isn't outta the realm of possibility either. I think the mitigating factor is simply the, the more aligned action of the stick being, being closer to the ball, and the motion of the player being not quite so explicit when you see, when you see it in slow motion, his head synapse back and, and you see the elbow moving towards the head.

It does look, um, a lot more in the malicious category than it does in the negligent category, but, um. As Luke says, this leans more to the yellow card 10 and the previous one leans more to red and it does for me too. What would be interesting at this level is that there's a tournament director who would obviously be reviewing this incident and under the FIH code of conduct, he, that tournament director would have the remit toward any sanction that they deem.

It doesn't have to be a red card in order for it to end up being a match ban, a multim match, ban, whatever they decide that is within their power to apply. So even if it got missed entirely by the umpires. A player could be awarded a, um, a multim match ban in that situation. So it's not just, um, the umpire's team penalty in that situation, but this also rubbed off a goal.

So, um, there was a lot of impact there and I'm glad that, that that part actually occurred as well. But I could see this, I could see this either way. Okay. The challenges that we have when we look at these situations is the whole precise off the baldness. And when I sat down for my pre-match chat on Saturday with my colleague, I, I had been prepping for this show and I'd been watching a lot of these serious mis conduit videos and I said to him, I'm gonna be watching your circle when you are watching the ball and vice versa.

When, when you are watching. When I'm watching the ball, you watch the circle and I was very determined to be better with my focus and put it where it was more useful. And that's something that we really have to cultivate. We're very good at staring at the ball. We're very good at, uh, at looking for feet and obstructions and all that sort of thing.

And we, but we do need to think more about these big calls because it has happened to me. It's very likely happened to you where something happened, A player goes down and you go, I didn't see anything. Oh my God, what did I miss? So. Make a conscious effort to cultivate this skill. Be the umpire who's standing by the side of the pitch and watches what's going on in the circle instead of watching the ball and watch the, the fancy stuff.

You're gonna miss some fun things and some great exhibitions of skill at times, but this is gonna help you develop your off ball focus, and that is something that all of us can benefit in making more of a priority and discuss that in your pre-match chat. When do you need help? When are you going to help your colleague with that?

Okay. Um, let's see. I'm gonna get your comment here, friend. Uh, does the FIH also release the rulings of tournament directors like Euro hockey does sometimes. It depends. It depends. It'd be great to be able to say that it's, uh, it's consistent, but. I've looked for them sometimes and haven't seen them, and then sometimes I've seen them.

It depends on the continental Federation that is hosting the tournament and that sort of thing. Like you say you're a hockey, um, path often posts theirs. Um, but I don't see them sometimes in other competitions. And is it a world level competition? That sort of thing? Mixed bag. Mixed bag. So, um, can't say exactly, but what, what you don't get is sort of the breakdown of exactly how they've applied the um, you know, what they saw.

It's more of a, we've deemed this to be a level three breach of the code of conduct and this is the sanction we're applying and we took into account, you know, the player's remorse and that sort of thing, but they don't really talk about the incident in great detail, which is kind of interesting. Right.

So that is serious misconduct and the ways in which we can sort of think about, uh, dealing with the skill. With that, I just wanted to give a, a quick note as we're, as we're wrapping up, oh, as I press the wrong buttons, five more days, um, that I have presale pricing going on for the, um, uh, that I have the 10% off going on, on the USBC model radio.

So if you've been waiting for a V six USBC or a REF com USBC radio, I, they are on the way from China right now. And in order to pay for them, I'm begging for pre-sale for pre-orders and because I'm begging, I'm giving you a deal. How do you like them Apples just saying it right as it is. So if that's on your shopping list right now, uh, there'll be 5% off after March 15th until they arrive.

So if it takes till, it better not, it better not. I'll die. If it takes till June, they'll be on 5% off until they arrive and I can fulfill the back orders. So, but if you wanna save 10% right now, they were 15% off. But that, that pre presale term has ended. So go get yourself 10% off and get your radios ordered.

So hopefully that is of interest and I hope you had a good time tonight and learned some stuff. It's always good to be, uh, hanging out with all of you. Thank you for your contributions. As always. Please do come into the Discord server as well. Let's see. Did that work? Yeah. Oh, you can't really see it because the red mic.

There you go. Look at that. FH umpires.com/ds is where we are at, and I would love to see you there. And if you got value out of today, please do the thing that everybody tells you to do on YouTube, like subscribe, all that kind of stuff. When is the next live stream? Uh, asks Alexander because you're a nosy Parker, probably next Tuesday.

This time slot seems to be working so far, but I need topics so you send 'em to me, get it into the Discord server. Uh, ping me on social media, uh, in dms. I sometimes see them and we can um, we can take that into account for next week 'cause I've got a lot of, lot of notes and a lot of clips hanging out that I can probably use.

So thank you so much. Keep being awesome out there. Have a great hockey week and hockey weekend and we'll see you next week. And yes, do the thing. Okay, see you soon.

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