Rule discussion - Double Team in WFDF rules

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[Stafman]

Hi All,

Just wanted to throw this out there as a situation that happened recently at the Australian Mixed WUCC qualifyinh tournament. Maybe Rueben with his rules knowledge maybe be able to shed light assist or any one else can throw their 2 cents in.

Situation:
Defence is playing zone defence. Offense is near the endzone trying to score.
A player on O is right behind the cup. Defensive player in Cup crashes on disc.

Stall count hits six and Player with disc calls Double Team. Player in cup contests call on basis that popper is within 3 metres. All of this is uncontested and no problems with it to this point.

My problem with this rule is that as soon as the "contest" from the defensive player occurs, its a stoppage in play. Even if the O player immediately realises their mistake (and thats what it was, not intentional), the contested call results in a stoppage and a restart with a check. In this time, the player with disc has a chance to make eye contact with a free player in the endzone and is set to make an immediate throw for score as soon as disc is checked in.

As such, the incorrect call by O results in a stoppage giving them time to gain composure, check out the field and determine their options, where as the defence can do nothing to stop it. The only alternative I see is for the Defence not to contest, at which point, we have to drop the stall count by 2 despite not infringing the rules, and give the offence more time to make a play for their incorrect call.

As I said, are there any ideas out there for why this is acceptable. Given I havn't played the game for a long time (18mths), then perhaps the rule used to be worse and this is a much improved version. I dont know. Happy to see different points of view.

Cheers
Stafa

[Mortakai]

It's certainly not intentional cheating if the thrower called it with good knowledge of the rules but just missed something visually. Being able to the make the good eye contact is just part of how the game works... I'm sure the defense also would end up being able to more calmly look around and get clearer perspective in the same way. Net advantage = 0.

(PS. Some people /me included/ may pay more attention to the rules-specific forum rather than this general one, and posting here instead of the rules-specific place may cause it to be missed by many others that also want to help)

[Pepper]

Also, in almost every other situation imaginable, any stoppage of play is arguable advantageous to the defense. not offense. But I agree that the net result in this situation is 0 advantage.

[Henry]

If the marker doesn't think that there was a double team (and they could probably see there was a popper in their peripherals), then they COULD just keep counting.  If the player with the disc then really thinks that there was a double team they can call fast count on the marker.  I don't know if this is technically within the spirit of the rules, but I've seen it done before and nobody complained about it afterwards.