Apparently Brizzle city have sent a letter to all other clubs in the championship to say they will no longer be kicking the ball out for injuries and instead leaving it to the Referee

Hallelujah to that can we now follow suit

UPTHEPORT wrote:Apparently Brizzle city have sent a letter to all other clubs in the championship to say they will no longer be kicking the ball out for injuries and instead leaving it to the Referee

Hallelujah to that can we now follow suit

I agree. The one proviso is that if a player were aware that an opposition player had sustained a serious injury I would hope any player would have the humanity to kick the ball out regardless of policy.

UPTHEPORT wrote:Apparently Brizzle city have sent a letter to all other clubs in the championship to say they will no longer be kicking the ball out for injuries and instead leaving it to the Referee

Hallelujah to that can we now follow suit

So what happens if the referee injures himself when kicking the ball out?

Reminds me. At one point on Saturday the ref stopped play for an injury whilst we had the ball near half way. He restarted with a drop ball to one of their players who hoofed it to King. I was sure (as was the bloke behind me) that all drop balls are now non-competitive and given to the team that in possession when play was stopped and at the place where they had the ball. This is so that any advantage is not lost (as happened on Saturday). Did I dream this new rule or just another ref that forgot/doesn't know the rules.

Yes, outside the penalty area he should drop the ball to a member of the team who last touched it.

Is seems in this case neither the referee nor the player were fully conversant with the change in law.

Can't blame the ref for that.

Amberexile wrote:Yes, outside the penalty area he should drop the ball to a member of the team who last touched it.

Is seems in this case neither the referee nor the player were fully conversant with the change in law.

Yes I thought that. But simply put it down to my amazing lack of knowledge of the laws of the game and my heartfelt belief that qualified referees never make mistakes.

Moving on the new laws don't really solve the problem. The defending side is given the opportunity of marshalling it's defence. Perhaps a fairer change to the rules would be to drop the dropped ball altogether and instead give an indirect free kick to the side in possession instead.

Not a perfect solution but in my view the best available.

That may give the team in possession too much opportunity to immediately get the ball into the opposition penalty area. Perhaps start the play with possession to the goalkeeper. On another point, it's good to see the ref having the opportunity to stop play if the ball touches him and falls kindly to one team. Am I right in thinking that he doesn't have to stop play, it's in his discretion?

Willthiswork wrote:Can't blame the ref for that.

That's interesting. Many a true word.

I sometimes think legislators change ruled for utterly pointless reasons. The kick-offs now being allowed to go back wards.

However some rule changes in my view damage the game. You see I don't understand the offside rule. I know what it says but I don't understand it.

I'm with the late Malcolm Allison on this one. If a player is not interfering with play hr shouldn't be on the pitch. All this nonsense about obstructing line of vision. Fine if human beings a) couldn't move their heads and b) didn't have peripheral vision.

excessbee wrote:That may give the team in possession too much opportunity to immediately get the ball into the opposition penalty area.

I agree. However the defending team have the opportunity to get their defenders in position. Whereas an attacking team may well have had a defence stretched and will have thus lost a really good opportunity to score.

As I said I don't think that there is a perfect solution. Unlike snooker you can't recreate a position in play.

I agree there is no single best solution, in some circumstances the current drop ball restart will be more appropriate and in others an indirect free kick will be, especially when you take the differing distance from the ball aspect of each into account.

My assumption would be that the powers that be will have looked at both and decided the drop ball to be better more often but I may be giving them too much credit there.

Stan A. Einstein wrote:

Willthiswork wrote:Can't blame the ref for that.

That's interesting. Many a true word.

I sometimes think legislators change ruled for utterly pointless reasons. The kick-offs now being allowed to go back wards.

However some rule changes in my view damage the game. You see I don't understand the offside rule. I know what it says but I don't understand it.

I'm with the late Malcolm Allison on this one. If a player is not interfering with play hr shouldn't be on the pitch. All this nonsense about obstructing line of vision. Fine if human beings a) couldn't move their heads and b) didn't have peripheral vision.

Agreed - if you are on the pitch (in an attacking role) you are interfering. You could be pulling a defender out of a natural position which is allowing an opportunity to occur. Perhaps a mid-half dotted line as an offside point?