Rule Changes

Dear Andy,

One of our badged umpires distributed your article to all of the badged umpires in our association, it was very interesting seeing as we have been given very little information from AANA or Netball NSW regarding these proposed rule changes or whether any decision had been made. Quite a different reality than the comments withh regard to Australia made in your article..........

I am concerned about the practical aspects of many of these changes and whilst i can see Gordon Dudman's point of view, i can also see where these rules could be seriously abused at a club level and even regional level where there is a large discrepancy between the experience level of the coaches and the experience level of the umpires ...who tend to use these games to learn and gain confidence from.

Whether these rules are supposed to make the game more spectator-friendly or not, there are certainly areas where the rules will become less umpire-friendly...in that it will take quite a period of time to determine interpretations and this will make it difficult for junior umpires who are already having to learn how to determine whether a contact is "interfering" or where advantage play is appropriate...these things are not easy to learn and if you then bombard them with rules that "change the game..." you may find a real disillusionment amongst players and umpires alike.

• Umpire No Longer "Calling" Play
  • This takes an element of control away from the umpire; As the rule stands the umpire must ensure that all players are on-court when the throw-in is taken....with the change....What happens if a player decides as is their right to throw the ball in...but not all players are on court ? does the umpire then have scoope to reset the throw-in after all players are back on court.
  • When does the 3 second count begin...what determines whether the player is ready to take the throw-in b/c it is now up to them to decide when to throw.
• Taking of penalties
  • There has to be a firm definition of "close"...otherwise it will occur that the penalties will be taken in a parallel position and an advantage will be gained that is over and above the penalty it then disadvantages the other team....and thus contravenes statements to the effect that even the offending team shall not be placed at a disadvantage over and above the penalty itself.
  • This rule is penalising the defence out of the game ! They often have to contend with umpires who are attack-orientated to start with..this now makes it harder than ever !
• Contact
  • I agree to an extent wit Gordon in that I make a very strong attempt at trying to ensure that my contact calls are calls made b/c there was interference. It comes down to judgement and to have a rule like this curtails the judgement of the umpire and does not lend itself to a "clean" game....i can definitely see an increase of elbows jabbing into ribs and knees pushing if this comes in.
  • Many umpires work hard to implement the advantage rule so that any contact that occurs but does not interfere with a player is called as an advantage call...this then indicates to the players that te umpire is aware of the contact taking place.
• Coaching
  • As for the other changes there is a big gap between club and national level netball and the implementation of this rule to suit both would be very difficult.....
  • I personally don't appreciate an abusive coach....will there be a rule in regard to the level of qualification these coaches can have before they are allowed on deck (so to speak).. this is now the case in Swimming...that only fully accrediated coaches are allowed on deck at all levels of meets.