can you tell me why you decided to deal with what you decided was the lessser incident and leave the biggie.to your a r
not having a go just asking
Get ready for a long post.
Background: The incident was in the 85th minute with the home team chasing a one nil deficit. 4th playing 6th (12 team comp mid season) U20s (4XOA allowed). 1 yellow card in a hard but straight forward first half. The 10 minutes leading up to the incident was very tense and getting physical with 3 yellow cards in the 10 minutes, 1 SPA for away and 2 reckless for home. I also had a tame mass con on one of the reckless tackles but easy to control as nothing came of it. I have slowed the game down enough to make it more manageable/controllable but not too much to not make it unfair to home team and frustrate them. I am staying closer to play than usual to be able to get to any potential bad tackles fast. Junior AR, second year referee 16 YO. Senior AR 4th year ref 19 YO who did the previous U18 centre. I watched the second half and he did a decent job with good authority. My first time working with both. My Mass con instructions for them was not to get in the middle. Observe and note. I may get in the middle and I want them to note anything I may miss. Nothing about double mas cons.
The incident: Home team attacking. Home centre back has the ball 5 yards in his own half 20 yards from touchline on TA side. Away striker closing in on him. I am 10 yards away from him, in front of him but slightly to his left. Majority of players are behind me where he is expected to pass or cross the ball. Home centre back kicks it to to his right winger and the away striker makes contact with him. The contact was careless (nowhere near reckless) but it was a little late and put the centre back off balance who fell to the ground. I blow straight way and keep a close eye for reactions and sure enough the centre back gets up and squares up with the striker. I and 2-3 nearby players (both sides) start running in. As I am running in I hear some noises behind me I turn back and see two players squaring up about 15 meters behind me about 5 from the touchline near my AR1, multiple players running at them and my AR is already on the field getting to them. I have a quick look at the tech areas and they are still seated. I had to make a quick judgement call. I had two options really. Manage the 4-5 in front of me and leave the 10-12 to the AR and get to it as soon as I can. Or leave the 4-5 to themselves hoping it doesn't escalate and get to the 10-12. Either option could have gone wrong. From what I had seen of AR1 so far and the state of the game indicating the 5-4 in front of me has every chance of escalating, I decided with option 1.
So I got to the centre back and striker, the players running to that saw me and luckily slowed down. A gentle outwardly push on the two to separate them and asked their team mates to keep them apart. It took 10 seconds or so for me to get to the bigger incident. The AR was doing a decent job of deescalating but there was still a fair bit of handbags happening which was managed fairly easily with both of us in there. We both walked 'backwards' to isolation for a chat on the touchline, 'away'ed' players who waked close to ears drop. His said it started with a verbal from a home player saying 'dirty team' and response from the opponents and all handbags from there. He didn't think there was a yellow in it. I told him it is a caution each side and asked him the number for the two who started it, A8, and H12. There rest is in the OP.
Just to give more context. A8 was send off for a second yellow 3 minutes later after a reckless challenge. No complaints were made on that decision/incident by either side. The game ended up 0-1.
Not all my player/game management incidents turn out to be as the way I was happy with this one. The point of the OP was that as happy as I was with the handling of it, there were still things I could have done better. I found one and with above description others probably can find more.
is he done yet ?
