The infamous Squareball Rule?

Trenchman

Hmmm, I see the sweeping statement brigade are out in force again!

Lads,not all umpires are inadequate.Not all umpires 'have no interest in making the big calls'.Not all umpires are there to just wave a flag and get a free dinner.It's just that when a referee or his umpires makes a hames of a decision, a la Derek Fahy, Martin Sludden, John Sexton and McEneaney last year, the tendency is to say 'ALL umpires are not up to standard....fat,old,balding....in it for the day out....blah blah blah.'

I umpire for an intercounty referee. I am part of an eight man team, nationally qualified, that the referee rotates depending on availability.The oldest of us is 30 and we have two fully qualified referees amongst the 8.
We care deeply about our job because we realise it's importance. We all still play the game and we all know the rules inside out. People make out that it's a complete free for all and that we are only interested in a free dinner. But it's not. We consider it a privileged position and prepare accordingly. Say we are umpiring a game in Portlaoise on a Sunday. We travel up from Waterford to be at the pitch at least an hour beforehand if not more, having had a quiet night on the Saturday. We might have a chat about the rules on the way up, although our powers as umpires are pretty limited. Perhaps two hours up and two hours down. Do the game as best we can, maybe stop for food on the way home (invariably we are more anxious just to get home to be honest). Not exactly glamourous and not exactly the most rewarding.

But we love it. It's important to us that we do the game to the absolute best of our ability, because that's what the players deserve. Now we will not get it right 100% of the time, but then who does? So all we can do is ensure that we are prepared to the best of our ability. And unfortunately, sometimes a call will be marginal. But we need to make a decision and go with what we fell is the correct decision. So invariably there will be square balls where it is just too close to call exactly what happened. Which goes back to the point that the rule itself is a complete farce and needs clarification.

The rule trialled in the league a few years ago was a pleasure to implement and it simply beggars belief that people wanted to go back to the old rule. The square ball rule in it's current form is not concise enough and too hard to make an accurate decision on. Something needs to be done or there will continue to be contentious square ball calls made each and every weekend.

harpsman

johnmcdnl wrote: »

so now the big full forward will do all he can to prevent the goalie catching the ball... and the goalie has no protection at all

nice rule in theory but full forwards will just do anything to prevent goalie from catching the ball so it'll not work... similar to the marks that were in the league one year?? (last year was it) other midfielders just tried to break the ball rather than give a mark away...

total rubbish,like most of the posts on here,tbh.
no team is going to waste a player just to have him stand in front of the goalkeeper.if i was defending i would love it if the other team wasted a forward by just stickin him in the square.also our keeper is 6'4" and 16 st so ill take my chances with him bein able to look after himself.if hes fouled:free out.there are rules about fouling already

harpsman

fair play to you trenchman.id say you d find most refs are in it for the love of the game too,but sure isnt it easier for the smart arses on tv and internet to slag em off all the time,with the benifit of 20 slow motion replays.
mind you the 2 boys at weekend were a joke.

Trenchman

Agree totally with you. They looked like two lads left out of the hospital to watch the game!

Squareball2010

Trenchman wrote: »

Agree totally with you. They looked like two lads left out of the hospital to watch the game!

They were a laughing stock tbh and its the minority like this that give the rest a bad name imo!

homerjay2005

TopOfTheRight wrote: »

Get rid of all existing rules and just give the keeper a free out if he catches it clean within the square from an opposition kick, like a mark in AFL

this...or indeed any defending player that catches the ball in the square gets a mark...

but it would be a more exciting game if you could just stand where you want when the ball is coming in.

padraig_f

Simple: an attacking player can't receive a pass in the square full stop. You can carry it in ok, you just can't receive a pass in there (which includes deflecting it goalwards).

Easy to judge: is the player inside the square when he receives the ball?

Scrapping the rule completely didn't work imo, teams just bombed in balls on top of the goalie with 10 people in there hoping for a deflection into the goal, it was a mess, not football.

The problem with current rule isn't the capability of the refs or umpires, it'll always be impossible to judge in it's current format. I've watched contentious ones multiple times on slow-motion replays and still wasn't sure, so it'll never be possible to judge in real-time.

padraig_f

padraig_f wrote: »

Simple: an attacking player can't receive a pass in the square full stop. You can carry it in ok, you just can't receive a pass in there (which includes deflecting it goalwards).

Maybe a tweak to it would be: the attacking player can't receive a pass with his hands in the square. I'm just thinking of the case where the goalie comes out, the forward fists it across to his team-mate, and the ball drifts into the square before the team-mate reaches it. He'd now be prevented from touching the ball, which wouldn't be ideal. With the tweak, the other attacker would still have the opportunity to kick the ball into the net without catching it.

johnmcdnl

padraig_f wrote: »

Maybe a tweak to it would be: the attacking player can't receive a pass with his hands in the square. I'm just thinking of the case where the goalie comes out, the forward fists it across to his team-mate, and the ball drifts into the square before the team-mate reaches it. He'd now be prevented from touching the ball, which wouldn't be ideal. With the tweak, the other attacker would still have the opportunity to kick the ball into the net without catching it.

tidier yet - can't receive a kick pass to hand any body part from a kick taken from outside the big rectangle.. (kick pass to foot or other body part??? could end up with a game of soccer with lads volleying but that could actually be pretty interesting... hmmm - as long as they don't impede goalie's attempt to catch the ball in any way... lets just ban this situation to prevent confusion)
- if ball touches ground before coming to the square it's live but forward must follow ball into square... ie - can't stand inside the square waiting for it...
- if a defender touches ball anywhere before the ball arrives it's automatically live and can be played... still have to wait for the ball to enter square before following in to prevent crowding the goalmouth


that allows for forwards taking shots that might fly across the face of the goal... also allows for fist passes across the face of the goal as well...

padraig_f

johnmcdnl wrote: »

- if ball touches ground before coming to the square it's live but forward must follow ball into square... ie - can't stand inside the square waiting for it...

oh yeah, that's a good one, would get rid of my (slightly messy) not being able to receive the pass with your hands. in the second case, the attacker recieving the pass would just have to let the ball bounce first.

so the rule could just be:

attacking player can't receive a direct pass inside the square.

(where bouncing or coming off defender makes it indirect).

Mountainlad

padraig_f wrote: »

oh yeah, that's a good one, would get rid of my (slightly messy) not being able to receive the pass with your hands. in the second case, the attacker recieving the pass would just have to let the ball bounce first.

so the rule could just be:

attacking player can't receive a direct pass inside the square.

(where bouncing or coming off defender makes it indirect).

To be honest if they had to wait for it to bounce they might as well just not be allowed in the square. Given the defender can be in the square at will, as can the keeper, how would the forward ever get their first if he has to wait for it to bounce?

lovelypoint

Trenchman wrote: »

Hmmm, I see the sweeping statement brigade are out in force again!

Well, I'll be the first to hold my hand up and say if any of my posts read that all umpires were inadequate, that I failed to get my point across. High profile examples of incorrect calls highlight the failings of some umpires, but not all, and if my posts read as tarring all umpires with the same brush, then that is not something I intended.

I'm sure there are many, many good umpires out there, but the fact remains that the standard isn't consistent, hence this squareball debate , and also the increasing incidences of incorrectly awarded points (hurling).