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@nik
great everyone! thanks for offering to help!
Reffing is a hard job and often heavily unappreciated. In order for us to have better reffing in polo, we need people to be willing to ref the game and make decisions without fear of attack (so that their judgement isn't clouded by being intimated by strong on court characters).
Obviously, we all make mistakes when we ref games and often, players and refs have very different perspectives based on what they can see. Towards the end of the tournament or in potentially contentious (in a big way) games it is useful to have experienced refs on hand.
However, This year to help combat this, Ryan has decided to come down hard on any players who feel it's ok to intimate refs! There will be a rule allowing any back chat deemed rude, offensive or untoward by the ref, that allows them to remove a player from the game (time tbc). Furthermore, Ryan, as head ref will be roaming and at any point if he sees a ref being intimated or being treated badly by a player will have the power to interject and remove said player from the game. Finally, if any ref feels that they need a 'helper' or more experienced ref to help, they will be able to request an assistant allowing them to have a confident ref available to give advice and back them up.
Obviously, Ryan will be having refs meetings at the beginning of each day to go over everything and of coure there will be room for questions anyone might have. At the end of the day, we all play the game and we all know the rules. All refs for the tournament will be provided with a copy of the ruleset and any less confident/experienced refs helped as much as they need. Ryan wants everyone to feel confident that under NO circumstances should they feel under pressure or threatened by a player. There will be a general announcement at the tournament covering all of this but to thse of you who are stepping up to help with this, cheers. You're awesome. And we have your back ;)
the more the merrier!