Adam_Harrison9 wrote:
It's got to be the one where an attacking player can just chuck the ball straight into a man committed to a tackle and it's given as a repeat set or possession back to the attacking team?! I can't believe defenders are getting pinged for good aggressive ddefence and attackers are being penalised for panic passes that are never on? Anyone else get as frustrated as me at the way these are refereed?
I'm not quite sure which rule you mean. Do you mean the knock-on rule, when it hits a player in the line of the pass?
I think the problem is that the ref has no choice, as defenders out wide deliberately tackle with their outside arm out held out, so that they either tackle or they stop the ball getting past them. It's the defence deliberately shutting down an overlap by stopping the ball. Literally, ball and all. If the defender was going only for the tackle, the ball wouldn't hit them. Hitting the ball is part of the technique.
As for the jumping after the bounce, again there is no choice. If the ball bounces, the catching player knows he'll get no protection if he jumps so he shouldn't jump. If you allowed a penalty there, you'd get players catching every bouncing ball with a little leap, knowing they couldn't be touched, because how do you police the height of the bounce? They'd get an unrestricted catch and the game would become a farce of players doing little leaps for eighty minutes.
Think I'm in agreement on the ball steal though. We don't players playing with the ball tucked into their chests. It stifles creativity. The game should be about running and tackling. Leave scrabbling in the tackle to the kick and clap.
