Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkJ
What really bothered me was the comment by the team behind me something to the effect of "yeah, but don't forget, that's the same ref that gave us tips to beat 254 last year, so he's not gonna call penalties on their oppossing alliance in the playoffs". I asked him what he was talking about, and they explained that last year the ref advised teams how to stop 254 and kept penalizing them during qualifying rounds. He then told me a couple teams including theirs atually passed on picking 254 in the playoffs last year because they were sure they'd get penalties in the playoffs from that ref.
How could a ref give teams advice on how to beat certain teams?
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I was a driver at SVR last year, and I remember the comment that the head ref made about "how to beat 254" during the drivers meeting. I believe that topic was discussed last year, it certainly disturbed me, because although I was not part of 254, we scored in the same method and he was basically telling the teams how to stop us as well.
As far as this years finals are concerned, I was completely shocked with the level of defense and contact that was allowed throughout the final matches. In final match 2, team 8's catapult mechanism turned 254's pneumatic release valve, putting they're scoring mechanism out of commission. Why it was not a bumper-zone violation, I don't know. The extent to which team 8 blocked the trackball was very sketchy, I apologize for not knowing all of the rules front to back, but sitting in a corner blocking one of the trackballs is not allowed if I remember correctly (please don't thrash me on not knowing the rules, but I distinctly remember team 8 blocking two trackballs, one of which was popped, for over 15 seconds in I believe match 2) As far as the G<14> ruling goes, I'm very displeased with how the referees handled the call. Apparently it was being called the same way the entire regional (ie. teams would lift up the ball two inches and "descore" the trackball) but when it comes the the finals, they finally decided to change their ruling? I agree with Martin, this years game is too open to interpretation, which makes it really hard to be a referee, and have consistent ruling from regional to regional. I think SVR had the most defense-heavy matches you will see this year.
Nevertheless, very exciting finals put up by both alliances, great robots all around. Thank you to all the volunteers that made the regional possible!
Mike C.