[Vikesrock]

The video showed me all I needed to see to believe that the refs made the correct calls in Match 3.

At ~3:31 in the video you can see the 3278 (the truck) drive into the tower and the rebound slightly. They then do not move for the rest of the match. You can also see the midfield ref looking at them multiple times from when they hit until the end of the match. The head ref does point at them, but he doesn't have a good angle to see if they are actually touching or not.

At ~3:48 you can see 2549 push a tube roughly into 1730. This occurs before the END GAME as the towers are still flashing. 2549 then drops their claw and attempts to pick up this tube, it appears to slightly touch 1730 in the process. As 1730's robot does not move at all, and the tube remains at bumper level, below any deployment mechanism this action can not be construed as interfering with minibot deployment in my opinion. I believe the correct call is an incidental <G25> which is what the called and is the penalty signaled by the left midfield ref (not a penalty on 3278) who had a good angle to see the tube.

Regarding the 2512 tower issue, there are two possibilities:
1) The tower is broken, this is a field fault and the match should be replayed.
2) The tower is not broken. The refs are forced to do nothing.

While the circumstances were certainly not ideal (2512 losing comms and then the tower not being triggered) I believe the refs made the correct calls here (with the possible exception of the 2512 coach controls red card which is not visible from the video so I can't comment on and doesn't particularly matter).

I would have loved to see 1730, 2512 and 2225 win because if you have to lose it's always nice to have lost to the winners. Having said that, I am very happy to see the Robettes finally earn a blue banner. They have built great robots year in and year out and it was just a matter of time before they found themselves on the right side of the final match.

*Note: I am not a ref and have not gone through ref training. I have read the rules many times this season however, and referenced them while watching the videos and creating this post.*