Control of the Game

Advise for New Referees.

Establish your relationship with the teams from the moment your arrive.
Appear, smart, neat and well organised, to gain their confidence.
Show respect and welcome it being shown in return.

At the toss up go through a routine to ensure that the teams know their responsibilities and that you know yours.

• Ensure that the scorer is ready for the Captains to sign the scoresheet.
• Ask both teams if they are willing to share the net.
• Agree the time to go over the net.
• Allow the visiting team to chose, or offer each captain one side of the coin.
• Make the toss.
• Get the Captains to sign the scoresheet.
• Make the change of ends if necessary.
• Advise the scorer of the decision on who is to serve.
• Put the teams on the net, unless a delay has been agreed, by both captains, the organiser and yourself.

During the warm up, if the teams are sharing the net, then they are really responsible for what happens during that 10 minutes. You are doing them a favour by telling them when to change sides, and start serving.

Instruct your line judges to give you clear signals and to stand where you want them. You need to be able to glance quickly to get their decision, not wait for their signal, not look at position 5 when they have chosen to stand at 1.

• Determine if the Line judges know the game!
• Check that they know the rule about the ball being in.
• Clarify the signals.
• Ensure they know to signal touches.
• Advise them on foot faults of servers and players standing off court at service.
• Advise them on their role of correcting the aerials.
• Tell them to report unnecessary approaches by players.
• Wish them a good game.

Ensure your 2nd referee is controlling the bench and warmup areas. Call them over to give them advice if needed. Support their requests for penalties to be issued.

During the play, ensure your whistle can be heard.
Take time to consult 2nd referee and line judges before showing your decision.
Do this even when you have called a handling fault - they may have been trying to get your attention and not succeeded.
Show your decision clearly, precisely and in a steadly and controlled manner.

Allow the Captain's to ask for an explanation - give a simple and clear answer ONCE. Do not indulge in conversations about play.
Do not allow Captains to repeatedly question decisions of any official.

Keep a general awareness of the players' actions, and relationships between teams, especially at the net.
Allow friendly conversation and jokes through the net - we want players to enjoy the game.
Do not allow aggression to be shown through the net. Request the captain to ensure his team celebrate facing away from the net.

Set your standard of behaviour and maintain it. Do not allow the teams to set it for you by their complaints.

If players are behaving in an unsporting manner, despite requests not to, you must give the team, through their captain a final warning.

We hope it does not happen, but if unsporting conduct continues, or worse conduct occurs at any time, you must issue the appropriate cards.
You need to know which card to issue - it is difficult to remember, because it happens to rarely.
The 2nd Referee and the scorer are there to ensure the card is correctly recorded, but you should wait for them to acknowledge they have recorded the card.
You should still check that after the game, when verifying the scoresheet.

Delay warnings/penalties do need to be issued. Coaches do deliberately delay and distrupt the game, especially when they feel their team needs to break the concentration of the opposition.

Never indulge in converastions with players you are disciplining.