PLEASE give me your opinion

[Richard hobson]

I recently played a polo match and feel I was penalised unfairly by the referee. I will do my best to explain!

During the match I was fouled while in the process of taking a shot approximately two meters out from the goal. The Referee blew his whistle and awarded me a free throw. (At this stage if the Referee had let me play the advantage I may have scored?) I took the free throw quickly and scored. The Referee disallowed the goal on the grounds that I didn’t wait for his whistle. So I had to take it again and therefore the defending team, the team who committed the foul in the first place, were given time to get 5 boats and 5 pairs of paddles between their goals and me, hence I never scored the second time.

Question; should someone who has been fouled have to wait for the whistle particularly when the team guilty of the foul are deliberately pushing me out of position in order to get time to get their 5 men where they want them? Should my first shot at goal not have been allowed?

I feel I’ve explained this quite well and eagerly await your replys,

Regards, Richard Hobson

[Stuart Midgley]

You do not have to wait for the whistle on a foul. The only times you have to wait for a whistle are at the start of play or when time out is called or when it is a referees ball.

You should have been awarded the goal.

Stu.

[clyde]

I agree with the first part of Stu's answer in that, unless the ref called a T-Out you shouldn't have needed to wait for a Whistle. In the Netherlands the ref used to blow all the time to acknowledge that a throw could be taken, but even there, this is no longer a requirement.

However, you said the ref awarded a Free Throw. This in itself implies you can not score directly from your shot unless you were either passed the ball or you moved the ball 1m horizontally before taking the shot.

In the new ICF rules most fouls are actually Free Shots where you can shoot directly. But you do not suggest when this happened and if you were playing to the new rules.

[TheMasterG]

I thought all fouls during play resulted in a Free shot(apart from a penalty). If not then when are free throws awarded rather than a free shot?

[Irishpolo]

I agree with both Clyde and Stu's comments. However you stated that you were fouled in the act of shooting within 2 metres of the goal, then this should have been a goal penalty.

There are a couple of inaccuracies in the decisions of the referee. Once you presented the ball and then shot, a goal should have been allowed if the referee awarded a direct shot. As both Clyde and Stu pointed out a ref does not have to blow the whistle unless a time out was called to restart play

[clyde]

As correctly pointed out by Irishpolo, it should have been a GPS in the first place. I was simply trying to answer other points raised.
In actual fact, it is now a lot easier to concede a GPS than ever before. Mind you in the old rules this still didn't seem to generate too many even though the ref had no choice in the rules if there was any foul+Shot+6m. But that's an issue of poor refing.
Now even preparing to shoot or attempting to pass to someone for a certain goal would be enough on an undefended goal outside 6m.

Anyway...
MasterG asked when a ref should award a Free Throw.
This is what it says:-
* All Balls out of Plays (Goal Throw, Corner, Side Line)
* Centre Restart as the ball went out of play through the goal
* All Start Infringments
* Illegal Possession - only for failing to present the ball

NOTE, this is now quite confusing, as all other Illegal Possessions are Free Shots.

Have I missed any ?

Personally I think it should be anything except Ball out of Plays as this makes things real simple.

It doesn't black and white say one way or another for Ref's Ball, but my gut feeling is that it is called during open play when a shot can be made and so that should continue, Which is what we will now be playing to in Britian, becuase I thought it should be stated one way or another.

Following conversations with Jon Bissett in Essen there seems to be many errors which will need fixing. I think this could be one of them.

Sorry to take this away from Richard Hobson's original question, and I am still curious when his situation actually arose. New rules or old ?

Clyde

[becks.c]

It sounds a bit unfortunate. Sometimes as a ref you become concerned a foul could be dangerous so you blow your whistle too quickly: It is not clear from your desciption as to whether the foul was dangerous, perhaps the referee called time out to award a card and hence this was why play needed to be restarted with a whistle. It sounds as if the opposition gained advantage from an infringement which is a shame.
Perhaps your refs could be encouraged to play the advantage a little more, eg wait one pass and see if there is an advantage, if not then make the call.

:(

Perhaps you could become involved more in refereeing and encourage this?