Advice for National Series refs

It can sometimes be a mistake not to stop the play if you think things could escalate, because they often will escalate. On the other hand, sometimes stopping the play makes no difference, and the foul-play escalates anyway. In which case, having stopped the play, you are then well placed to start dishing out penalties.

yep, stopping the game can only be helpful. I will try and use that a bit more (obviously not unless things look like escalating)

2) I hated this game, mainly because I was enjoying a non-physical day and it came as a bit of a surprise. If two players enjoy a rough game then so be it, but if things start getting out of hand then take control by being very verbal, or by stopping the game (when neutral) and asking everyone to calm down, or if you've had enough and it's getting stupid/dangerous, then remove the offending players (if it's obvious) and allowing the game to continue 2v2, or simply remove the next person that fouls for 30 seconds and repeat as necessary. (Some games are physical and clean, others are physical and dangerous, others are physical and malicious, don't just see a physical game as a reason to make calls... look for t-bones, blindside checks, elbows, slow bones, etc.)

The lines can be pretty hard to define, while I like the idea of only looking for specific fouls, if the intensity levels get a bit too crazy it can be hard not to look at things in the context of the game. I suppose Bill's comment covers that though