On-field discipline issues
If you have any discipline issues on the field then these could occur at three different levels of severity:
1. Deal with it yourself
Your actions are enough and players/club are aware of the issue and have reacted to your comments.
You are happy to leave it as job done/club dealing effectively with problem.
2. You feel the issues are sufficient to escalate, but not to the level of a red card
You find repeated problems on field, players not responding (e.g. 2 yellows to same team, on-going lack of respect for your decisions,
unhelpful captain, club admin problems, etc.).
In these cases email your area discipline secretary with details. The club’s secretary will be contacted and requested to remedy matters to avoid similar problems in the future. Please give sufficient detail.
If your report is one of several relating to a particular club then the relevant county discipline officer will be informed.
3. You judge the need for a Red Card.
Hopefully you will meet very few situations where a red card is needed.
Usually these will follow a specific warning of a player or a general warning via the captain.
However do not shy away from using a red card without prior warning. Examples of such offences would be situations where the player has time to think about his actions – punch to the back of the head, joining a melee and targeting a player with a punch to the head, kicking a player on the ground, stamping a player on the ground, stiff arm tackle on a player running at pace.
In each situation it is your judgment when a red card should be issued.
The Society will always support you.
When sending off a player always remain calm.
Do not enter into a discussion on the field.
Take sufficient time to make notes about the incident, including key players numbers/names as well as the time and score.
Do look at the sending off form at the start of the season and ensure you read the LADs processes on a regular basis, so you have some idea what will be needed should you need to use one.
If you have to abandon a match on disciplinary grounds, you have in fact dismissed both sides and will need to submit a Discipline Report.
Do try to avoid getting into this situation.
Complete the on-line form and send to your area contact within 48 hours of game ending.
If there are any issues they will get back to you for clarification. If you cannot get a form done in 48 hours please phone your discipline advisor to forewarn them.
Contact info
See end of this link below for who is who:-
https://liverpoolrugbyref.pitchero.com/page/contacts/important-contacts--handbook-pdf/important-referee-contact-details-12059/
Your area discipline secretary will forward the form to the relevant Constituent Body/County RFU as required but may ask questions for clarity and consistency. You must co operate with them and can not pass this task to others within the society.
Some sendings off result in a discipline hearing, to which you are invited if the offending player requests it.
The Society would hope that you can make yourself available for such a hearing. If that is not possible then contact by phone or Skype during the meeting may help. However on the whole they do not ask for your attendance.
Are two yellows a red?
The answer is yes and a red card report should be submitted in the usual way.
However do note that if, having issued a second yellow, you are then subject to any form of abuse from the player as he/she leaves the field, then you should issue a red card for that – it will be more serious than the repeated offences you are currently dismissing the player for.
In any case go through the report writing process. There is no need for a report on single yellows for level 5 and below.
Referee abuse (not from players)
On the society web-page there is also a copy of the match official abuse.
We sincerely hope that none of you need to make use of this form, but if you do please ring your area discipline secretary immediately to discuss the process.
This form is for use when the abuser is a coach, club official, or spectator.
If it is a player then this is dealt with on the sending off report as you can issue a red card to a player. If you choose to ignore dealing with these unsavoury persons that unfortunately frequent rugby on the odd occasions then you are only leaving them to abuse your colleague next week.
Referee abuse (from players and non-players) has increased significantly in the last couple of seasons and it is totally appropriate to deal with it promptly and firmly.
If you do not feel the matter is serious enough to report via the abuse form then do let your area discipline secretary know as there may have been a number of previous incidents and overall the matter could need the Society’s attention.
Citing
Thankfully the incidents of citing are rare but if you think there may have been actions of a player on the pitch which might result in citing then do prepare for that eventuality.
Do not make any comment after the game about what you did or did not see.
Make your own notes about any aspects of the game which might be relevant.
You will probably have a good idea when it happened and you should note just the facts as you saw them.
Report the possibility of a citing to your area list discipline secretary and let the society Discipline Advisor - Paul Warrington know ( paulwref1@hotmail.com )
Please do not ignore problems – you are leaving them for the referee next week!