WTFL Wpg. Touch Football League - WTFL

1155 Posts

I was just reading through some old posts and a couple things drew my attention.

Huddle time count and ref verbal warnings.
- the ref is NOT required to give the team any kind of verbal warning. However, one .of the suggestions to be a better ref, is to "warn on technicalities" The time count is obviously subjective, we don't have scoreboard clocks.

So some refs do offer a warning. Some once, some all the time, some never. Knowing the amount of time left before a time count violation is really the Qb's responsibility! Not the HR.

# minutes left in the half.
- the ref is NOT required to give any kind of anouncement of the time remaining after every play, or at all during the last 3 minutes. HE IS REQUIRED TO ANNOUNCE the 3 MINUTE Warning That is it.

I just heard that a very experienced team mis-managed the clock and lost a game, because time ran out. They blamed the ref. They said there was 1:20 seconds left the last time they asked, they ran 3 plays, and during their next play the time ran out. They blamed ther ref for mismanging the clock.

Well considering a play will take @ 10 seconds from snap to retrieving the ball, no time-outs were called, and they ran 3 seconds.....voila = 120 seconds +. Game over. Not the Refs fault.

If you ask the ref the amount of time remaining he IS obligated to tell you. If you do not ask he is not required to say a word. The "How to be a Ref book" also tells the refs not to talk too much. i.e. DO NOT SAY "Third and one and a half." Why? well, there are no Yardsticks to actually measure, and if the distance was third and 3/4s and the ref said 3rd and a half!!!! The ref would get himself in trouble. The refs should say "Third and short."

Now do all refs ref the same? NO! Some do announce more, and talk more. As noted, they are trying to make the game go smoother for the players by doing so, and avoid penalizing "technicalities."

I thought I'd throw that out there, as I had heard some comments about the those two situations.

15 Posts

Thanks for clearing it up, I Guess

But as a new team it makes it very difficult to learn the game properly with the ref's all doing their games different. Just an example I work for the railway in a unionized envrionment and its the lazy guyz that do the bare minimum ( because thats all their required to do by contract ) that make it a very frustrating place to be on certain dayz, there not doing anything wrong because it's ALL THEY HAVE TO DO. My last game i had Scott as an HR and another who im not sure of his name, the way they handled the situations were great. I still didnt understand a few things as a captian and he took the time and explaned it to me an it was great ( good job scott ).

We lost the game but i left very happy due to they way the game was handled. In our first year together we are all learning but we need to learn off the people around us. So when we start a season with awesome refs then out of nowhere we get a cranky ref who is only gonna do what he has to do, it make it hard to adjust as a new team with all new players. i could understand how this wouldn't effect the higher div teams that all know the game for themselves but we are learning as we go.

also is the copy of the official ref hand book available online for us to view so I can understand the rules they way they are written and not they way i see the games played every day.

I might sound pissed off a few times in this post but its really just a little frustrationg mixed with alot of confusion.

And hats off to all the ref's that help out with the extra announcements you are the ones that make the game fun for my new team.

Thanks
Arthur G

1155 Posts

Touch Football Ontario has an excellent rule book on line. They have about 10 different rules than we do. (but they are basically the same)

We used to have the basic rules on the web site.

The "How to Ref" books are available to refs. We train our refs How to ref. The Rule book tells everyone the rules.

You have to get a rule book and read it. Some of refs have to as well I agree! But even if you are 90 years old, it is not the ref's responsibility to teach you the game. he just has to administrate and interpret the situations. Maybe you need a coach.? Make a Post?

Touch Ontario site is,
www.tfont.com

15 Posts

your right spider its not the ref's job to teach me the game. maybe i should not enter my team in a serious competetive league! maybe i should put in a team some kind of a REC league that allow's people who dont know the game well but want to have fun play! wait a minute thats exactly what i did! so have a little patience man come on. with no rule book online at the begining of the season the only way to learn the game was to play it! so I am trying my best an asking questions along the way. stop treating me like some vet who grew up around the game cause i never played any organized ball before. All I am doing is trying to find the best way to learn the game properly and with little options out there for me the ref's were the only way to get an understanding.

In the rec league we only get 2 ref's so u ask us to deal with the spots cause their doing there best understandable, NOW it's the league's turn to understand that they are ref'ing players that are new to the game so have a little patience with the questions that are gonna be asked

thats all im gonna say on this topic, nothing more to say
thanks for hearing me out spider and i do luv playing in th dub and will continue to for many years to come!

1155 Posts

AS I ran an errand after my response to you,I sat and thought that it is absolutely appalling that we don't have the basic rules up, or a link to the Tfont rule book site. In reflecting, I thought we should make our own book, copy Tfont's, order some.... something. A few years ago we used to have a "new team orientation practice." - Free - Indoors, 7-9teams showed up, scrimaged for a couple hours, we provided a ton of refs, teams got to play each other on a rotational "roundrobin basis, yada yada.....and someone threw it out....What the hell happened there????

Sorry! The last admin didn't do it I guess. We used to have a link to TFONT,also, somehow it is gone! I havealready contacted the web site designer toget us a linnk page. I tried to do it, but the program would no let me add a menu, with the link

Additionally, When we were governed by Football Canada, in the 90's they printed rule books..... last price was around $10.00, and the last update was a few years back.....too bad. Political comment- Football Canada should not have dropped touch sponsorship.

OK I am sorry! I have not realized the depths to which we have sunk. If you want you may contact me, and I still have acouple of TFont, plus last year's recommendations of what we are adopting this year from TFOnt rule books available, thatI tabulated forthe ref clinic at the start of the year. Who wants one????? Come and get it!!!

Again I am shocked, that you need this. You are absolutely correct I was treating you like you were a vet team, and "should know the rules" I wonder how many more teams might like a copy of a "rule" book??? Probably quite a few.

Geez I feel really bad about this. Alright, anyone needing a copy, send me your mailing address and I'll copy more, and send them out!

I wll once again try and get that link up. You may copy it directly from their site as well. (It won't have our WTFL minor changes though. The changes are for plays that happen very rarely)

What a goof on the part of the league. I am off to create that links menu!

and again, on behalf of this and past administrations, my apologies!

15 Posts

WOW didnt see that comming!

I think the dub is doing a great job as far as helping the new teams, it was just a misunderstanding that needed to be cleared up, i think if there were a link for the official rules there would never be any problems so thats a great idea, I would have been able to prove weather the ref made an error or not instead of being clueless. Having 85 or so teams this year you were bound to run into a team that has really no clue lol ( my team ) and we made it thru 6 games before there was even a concerne so i dont think "we have sunk that low" and with the way your handling the problem now i think it's great.

Thanks for listening to my rants! appreciate it.

Arthur

1155 Posts

Man you were right!

OK I found the tfont site that Marcus posted. I created two new menu's for a rulebook and for that and other links.....But, as a matter of a few minutes ago, the original Blue Sweats Guy, Mr. Western Canada's first ever TOC tournament Chairperson, the often imitated, but rarely duplicated, Cliff "If you can't stand the heat,get out of the " Kitchen,...has provided me with a disk copy of the Football Canada rule book that we at the WTFL live by. I downloaded it, saved it, and have it on my hard drive.

(Ahem)I however, do not know how to get it to you unless you email me , and I will send it to you as an attachment. The mass mail out feature on our site does not have an attachment button(Marrrrrrrcccccuuuuuuusss!)

I did send that note out to all the reps and have had a 6th of the league respond in about 3 minutes.

So Arthur.......your post has proven to probably be if not the most, certainly one of the top posts of the year!! Congratulations, and Thanks!

46 Posts

Spidey, welcome back from the Dark Side...........

15 Posts

lets get back to whats really important

FOOTBALL!!