Week 1 Analysis

[Anthony Galea]

This is probably going to come off as long, whiny, and un-GP, but bear with me. I would like the referees to LEARN the rules, or at least be consistent. I am only posting this now because I fact checked beforehand.

First, during eliminations, whenever someone from our team would go up to the question box, we would be told, "You need the alliance captain in the question box"
I will simply quote the Game Manual for this:

T13
If a TEAM needs clarification on a ruling or score, one (1) pre-college student from that TEAM should address the Head Referee after the ARENA reset signal (i.e. PLAYER STATION LED strings turn green). A TEAM member signals their desire to speak with the Head Referee by standing in a Red or Blue Question Box, which are located on the floor near each end of the scoring table. Depending on timing, the Head Referee may postpone any requested discussion until the end of the subsequent MATCH.

Second, in Q-24, 3667 (This is in NO way putting them down) got disabled with the ball between them and the opposing low goal. We ended up losing the match, due to that reason. Afterwards, we sent a team member to the question box to inquire if, during that match, we were allowed to hold up the dead ball sign to render the ball dead. The referee told us yes, that we could. Later, when we were at the practice field, a referee came up to our drive team, and told us they were wrong, and that what they told us was incorrect. Our drive team was okay with that, because we had not tried using it since then, and they had delivered the correct rule.

Fast forward to Finals Match 1 (we are blue). After autonomous, a missed ball is on the red side of the field, and it goes in front of the red low goal, and there is chaos (as usual) around the ball, and 453 (red, once again, NOT putting them down) gets disabled with the blue ball between them and the wall, and the red low goal behind them. Because of what we were told earlier, we did not hold up the dead ball sign (which is also reinforced by the Q&A here), yet no possession call was made on 453, which should have been a G12, a 50 point technical foul. After the match, the referees said that we needed to hold up the dead ball sign. This lost us F-1.

So, to add on to everyone's complaints about missed calls, G26 (sodizzle, Joseph, and Tom, I agree with you on those miscalls, I mean come on, BLUE BOX) and G40 (which actually isn't too hard to not get called on as long as you're careful and take a tad more time), if you are a referee, PLEASE read the rulebook.