Try Out at the Tri-Nations

Saturday 17^th January saw thirteen senior referees convene on the Honeywell Sports Centre in Barnsley for the Tri-Nations Tournament featuring England, Scotland and Wales Kumite under 21 competitors.  

Referees: Peter, Ben, Tony, John, Tina, Dale, Dave, Gemma, Brian, Alex, Ivor, Tracey & Gary

The competition was arranged by England National Squad Coach Willie Thomas and the officials were collated by Dale Gamble EKF/BKF Chief Referee and was to serve as a warm-up for the Cadets (14-15), Juniors (16-17) & u21 (18-20) fighters for the European Championships in Zurich over the first weekend of February.  It also served a dual purpose of providing both competitors and officials a try-out of the new WKF Rule v9 effective Jan 1^st 2015.

Two areas were in operation with the officials split across both of them.  Tatami 1 had Brian Noble (World Ref), Ivor Thomas (Euro Ref), Dave Robinson (British Ref), John Robinson (Brit Ref), Gemma Holland (Eng Ref), Tony Tutty (Eng Ref) & Alex Rush (our one and only national referee from Scotland).  Tatami 2 had Dale Gamble (World Ref), Peter Bibby (Euro Ref), Ben Brown (Brit Ref), Tracey Archer (Brit Ref), Tina Pajuste (Eng Ref) & myself.

On area 2 we had the male and female under 21 categories so Hurrah! no face masks to deal with.

In the Referees Briefing, Dale clarified a few points in the new rules in particular with regards the changes to grabbing, holding and throwing.  These were:

1.    1. One hand grabbing and immediate technique of throw –OK – No C2 Warning or Penalty.

2.     2. One hand grabbing and no immediate technique or throw – Not OK – C2 Warning or Penalty.

3.     3. Two hand grabbing where kicking leg is caught and attempt at throw – OK - No C2 Warning or Penalty

4.     4. All other Two hand grabbing – Not OK – C2 Warning or Penalty

In addition now; no two seconds allowed after throw for follow up and only one bite at the cherry so to speak i.e. no multiple attempts at a score if the first is unsuccessful.

So All Clear then with and off we went downstairs to implement these rules!

The 'Management'  - Ben, Alex & Dave check that all is as it should be ' You can't come in 'ere mate'!

Dale briefed the coaches & competitors with the same information before we started so that hopefully we were all singing from the same hymm sheet so to speak.

Dale (hidden) conducts the briefing of the competitors and coaches.

On Tatami 1 Dale kicked us off with two bouts of female u21’s with no issues followed by Peter with two bouts of u21 males.  I was assigned to train a couple of ‘virgin’ volunteers on the scoreboard and score sheets so this kept me out of mischief for these bouts especially with changing the bout time from two to three minutes and back every two bouts.  Bouts 5 and 6 were for me to referee – again no real problems – all was going swimmingly well.

However, the next bout featured top English fighter Curtis Harvey (see previous FEW Report 30.11.2014) versus his Scottish opponent and this was very eventful with at least three instances of Curtis holding his opponent which could each have been given Cat2 Warnings.  Curtis also then did a superb take-down and follow up which up until 31^st Dec 2014 would have scored him a well-deserved Ippon (3 points).  However on this day in 2015, it could not score simply because Curtis grabbed his opponent’s gi top with BOTH hands and swept him to the floor then followed up with a superb punch.  Dale was Judge 4, Ben J3, Tina J1 and I was J2 and we all had to sit motionless despite wanting desperately to flag for C2 offences.  We could neither signal a Cat2 foul to Ao and we certainly could not signal for a score since the scoring technique was preceded by an offence.  Curtis was fortunate to get away with this foul and went on to win the bout.

This particular bout highlighted the difficulties in application of the rules and could easily have led to Curtis being Hansoku’d on Cat2’s – should we as referee’s be lenient and let the grabbing go or be pernickety and penalise every single instance of grabbing?  My view having attended a few Euro Referees briefings over the past three years would be to err on the lenient side.  It has been stressed previously that we do not want bouts decided by penalties especially Cat2 penalties, so to just stop the bout with Yame, reset with no warning/penalty issued and then restart would seem to be the sensible approach.

Dale stressed that Referees really now need to be on the ball – they can no longer rely on their panel of judges to help them out with penalties. Also that since Judges can only signal for points and Jogai, then the supporting aspect on points is really important for them otherwise good scoring techniques can go unscored without the mandatory two flags for the Ref.  

I now look forward to the Referees Briefings next weekend at the Paris K1 Premier League event where no doubt all will become clear and we will see whether our interpretation of the new rules has been correct.  Dale, Billy Brennan, Brian, Paul Gunn and myself can then feed-back to the officials at the EKF KYU Grades Championships on the Sunday.

Overall a good try-out at the Tri-Nations and a most enjoyable day.

Gemma & Ivor with Tina in the background