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(This is a question I raised in the old rules forum, but I am still puzzled by this).
17.2.1. A Defensive Receiving Foul occurs when a defender initiates contact with a receiver before, or during, an attempt to catch the disc.
17.6.1. An Offensive Receiving Foul occurs when a receiver initiates contact with a defensive player before, or during, an attempt to catch the disc.
From the interpretations:
Non incidental contact that occurs directly after the attempt at the disc (i.e. a defender catches the disc and then collides with an offence player) is considered to have occurred during the attempt at the disc.Definitions:
Incidental contact – Any contact which is not dangerous in nature and does not affect the play.
Initiate contact – Any movement towards a legally positioned opponent (either their
stationary position, or their expected position based on their established
speed and direction), that results in unavoidable non-incidental contact.From this I conclude that:
Non-incidental contact is contact which is dangerous and/or affects the play. So contact between a receiver and a defender which occurs after the outcome is determined (e.g. after a catch or an interception) can be deemed to be non-incidental only if it was dangerous (because it could not have affected play, obviously).This means that
- In a such a scenario one can only call a receiving foul if one feels there was dangerous play.
- The above paragraph from the interpretations is a bit redundant (since such contact can only be non-incidental if it is dangerous, and the dangerous play rule (17.1) surpasses all other rules).
Rueben, I vaguely recall that you disagree 🙂 Please let me know what I’m missing here.
Cheers
[EDIT: There is of course a scenario where contact after the catch/interception affects continued play (the next pass, etc.), but let’s put that aside and assume nothing interesting happens after that particular play.]
You need to refer to Rule 12.9 and the associated Interpretation:
12.9. All players must attempt to avoid contact with other players, and there is no situation where a player may justify initiating contact. “Making a play for the disc” is not a valid excuse for initiating contact with other players.
A player can be deemed to be “making a play on the disc” (Rule 12.9) when the disc is in the air and they are attempting to make contact with the disc in anyway i.e. to catch it or block it.
When making a play at a disc, players need to insure that they will not cause non incidental contact with another player (neither their stationary position, nor their expected position based on their established speed and direction), before, during or after the attempt at the disc.
Non incidental contact is any contact that is either dangerous in nature or affects the outcome of a play, regardless of whether the contact occurred after possession was established.
A breach affects the play if the outcome of the specific play may have been meaningfully different had the breach not occurred – eg if the player would not have been able to intercept the pass without causing significant contact with their opponent.This post may also help:
http://www.rules.wfdf.org/discussions/video/24-offensive-receiving-foulI am not saying “they’re going for the disc so it’s not a foul”. I’m just saying that if we follow the written rules and definitions, I can’t see how contact after the outcome of the play can be considered a receiving foul, unless it’s dangerous or significant (which I guess are sort of the same thing, no? How would you define ‘significant’ in that context?).
12.9 says all players must avoid contact, but that is not to say that if there is contact then it is automatically a foul. It’s in the rules that some contact is not a foul.
It comes down the definition of both “Incidental contact” and “Affect the play”:
Incidental contact: Any contact which is not dangerous in nature and does not affect the play.
Affect the play: A breach affects the play if the outcome of the specific play may have been meaningfully different had the breach not occurred.
So if
– a player makes an attempt to block/takes a catch, and
– contact occurs during that attempt (remembering that the whole action is considered as ‘during the attempt’, which includes what happens after they contact the disc), and
– they would not have been able to make the block/take the catch WITHOUT initiating that contactThen this is NOT incidental contact and constitutes a defensive/offensive receiving foul.
We have two definitions of ‘non-incidental contact’. The first, is simply the negation of the definition of ‘incidental contact’ which I quoted in the original post. The second is the one you gave before:
Non incidental contact is any contact that is either dangerous in nature or affects the outcome of a play, regardless of whether the contact occurred after possession was established.
A breach affects the play if the outcome of the specific play may have been meaningfully different had the breach not occurredUp to this point it is still unclear to me how non-dangerous contact which occurred after the outcome of the play could be considered non incidental. The outcome of the specific play could not have been different had the contact not occurred, because it occurred after the outcome was determined. Then comes the example:
eg if the player would not have been able to intercept the pass without causing significant contact with their opponent.
This is the only place in the rules with the term ‘significant contact’, so I’m not sure how to interpret it, but I’m guessing it definitely doesn’t mean ‘any contact’.
So rephrasing what you wrote:
if a player makes an attempt to block/takes a catch, and significant/dangerous contact occurs after that attempt, and they would not have been able to make the block/take the catch WITHOUT initiating that (significant/dangerous) contact – then that is a foul.That’s a pretty big difference I think. And it still leaves the question of ‘significant contact’.
if a player makes an attempt to block/takes a catch, and significant/dangerous contact occurs after that attempt, and they would not have been able to make the block/take the catch WITHOUT initiating that (significant/dangerous) contact – then that is a foul.
That’s a pretty big difference I think. And it still leaves the question of ‘significant contact’.
Correct.
Although you could really just see this as “significant/dangerous contact occurs during that attempt”, even though the contact occurs after the disc is contacted.
I would love for everything to be crystal clear and for there to be no grey areas. But that’s a very hard thing to achieve. Maybe one day…
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