Junior/Youth Kicking the ball away at half time

[DaveMac]

I had the pleasure of watching a bit of a game this weekend between matches. Was probably u18 or u17. Was a fairly heated game. The ref looked young and fairly inexperienced as was losing control a bit, but hey we've all been there.

My question is as he blew for half time the player who had the ball blasted it full pelt, in my opinion, at the ref. It flew over his head and went out of play by about 40 yards. A few of his team mates near by cheered. The ref sort of sheepishly laughed it off.

Personally I think I would have had a word with the lad and possibly even a yellow, as his actions were clearly aggressive. But interested to know everyone else's thoughts.

The ref had the last laugh though as didn't get the ball and the lads kicking off had to wander over to the bushes to collect it which made me chuckle. From what I watched of the second half he gained a bit more control and the game settled down. Made me grateful my u14 and u13 games were absolute dreams to ref with no problems at all, apart from a rather unpleasant downpour!

 

[HertsFinest]

Red card for violent conduct. No ifs buts or maybes.

 

[DaveMac]

@HertsFinest at the time I was wondering if I could have sold it as a red. He'd already sent a player from that team for a horrific tackle after about 25 minutes.

I felt sorry for him as actually his decision making was good, but he was looked really weak when making them. He was having really lengthy conversations with the players about every decision and letting them really undermining him. He just didn't have the authority over the game and should have been telling them to button it and go away.

 

[SM]

Agree with HF - that happens to me and he is having an early shower. I believe it comes under the category of technical assault - as such local CFA arrangements are that it is phoned through to county sec straight after the game.

Easy to laugh off if ball flies into the air. No so funny if he does it again next week and smacks a ref in the face with force.

I do like the ref not fetching the ball though. nice touch.

 

[HertsFinest]

Its soul destroying to watch young refs in that position and we all know what it's like. Hope you spoke to ref involved and cheered him up!

 

[DaveMac]

Its soul destroying to watch young refs in that position and we all know what it's like. Hope you spoke to ref involved and cheered him up!

I briefly spoke to him at half time and said he got the red spot on and it was a fairly tasty game, but it's fine the second half will fly by. It was a shame I only saw a bit of the second half as my game was starting as I would have been interested to see how it panned out.

The early red card essentially meant that team pretty much gave up and were 2 down at half time and think they were either going to totally roll over in the second half or go hell for leather to kick the other team off the park.