Originally Posted by
pv4
i'm not so sure on this rule anymore, it's so unclear. how i've been brought up is like you're saying - if you hit the player before the ball, particularly from behind, it's a foul.
but i know when westlakes played away at mussy we had old bobby reffing, and we copped roughly a dozen tackles from behind (majority slide-tackles) to which none were pulled up (particularly our right mid, who was legs-first-slid-tackled from mussy's final goalscorer at least 5 times, and in any other game they all could have been yellow cards, and even mussy fans were wondering how he stayed on the field, yet no foul was given for any). after appealing for all of them, i got a chance to chat to bobby about it, and his exact words were "it doesn't matter what order you hit the ball or player in - if the defender makes any contact with ball whatsoever in the one tackle motion, there is no foul". i clarified this, asking if a player slides in, completely takes the oppositions legs out (and even breaks his legs), and in exaggeration seconds later he makes contact with the ball in the same sliding motion, it's not a foul - and bobby confirmed it wouldn't be a foul. i then moved on to asking if a player in one motion elbows a player in the face, but also touches the ball with his feet, is that a foul - and bobby said if in one motion he makes contact with the ball it isn't a foul, although he'd probably pull up the elbow if it was obvious. he stated "new rules" dictated this.
so i don't know what to think anymore tbh. many yellows & reds, and thousands of fouls, i've seen in my day would not have been given had we been going off bobby's rules (and, it seems, the ref you had on the weekend was either going off these "new rules" or he thought it wasn't from behind & contact was made with the ball first - i'm not sure). when refs say "new rules" etc, is there an actual rulebook where they can clarify what they're talking about, which us mindless players can scan over? i remember when they brought in the rule that players had to stand yay far away from someone throwing it in, my club at the time was notified & they broadcasted the information to our players. the same happened with the sock tape thing this year. was the same notification given for this "new rule" of tackling from behind?
