[De Rieck Emiel]

It should be made possible to call a foul or violation on an illegal double team block (e.g. a second defender appears from behind and blocks a forward pass from the thrower within 3m without their offensive matchup being near the disc).
The only option currently is intervention from both team’s captains to return the disc (1.2.1).
Also, clarify what constitutes a double team block.

[Rueben Berg]

It is an in-built aspect of the rules that we do not assume that players will intentionally cheat (rule 1,2). We do not plan to change that aspect of the rules.

[Meret Trapp]

Why is this not treated as a violation as in “every other breach of the rules” (15.3)? It does not have to be intentional/ intent is difficult to prove, but an illegally positioned second defender breaches 18.1.1.5. Gaining a block from an illegal position impacts play, so 16.3. does not apply. If the teams disagree on whether the second defender was illegally positioned, 1.12. could apply. That would require changing the language in the annotations, but make it easier for players to call and deal with this breach. (That also has occurred in the past.)

[De Rieck Emiel]

Indeed, a change in language would be useful here. The rules do cover this situation already, but what I’m pointing at the most is that there is nothing that the thrower can ‘call’. Say an unintentional double team block occurs, what is the thrower supposed to say so that play stops and that the other players can understand what happened?

[Meret Trapp]

Based on existing rules “Violation” is the catch-all call, that also stops play. Only caveat here is: the thrower must not have noticed the double team and chosen to throw the disc anyway, as per 18.1.6.

[Conor Hogan]

I agree with the original poster – there have been some high profile blindsided double team blocks in the last 12 months, all of them from defenders thinking if they get a block on a throw on an infraction there’s no call to be made.

1.2, 1.2.1 and 1.6.2 apply, sure. But it would be useful for a specific reference for how players can resolve these blatant breaches to be mentioned in the infractions section of the rules

[Baptiste Fumaroli]

We’ve got to note that the defender is no longer illegally positioned when the disc is released by the thrower (as the thrower is no longer a thrower), and the defender may feel like they’re covered by 18.1.6. I feel like OP raised a good suggestion as it may look like a loophole and that’s easy to argue around that during a game. Of course 1.2 applies there but I think this particular situation should be precised so that any player reading the rules has a clear understanding that this is not possible.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Defender (almost) certainly was illegally positioned before the throw if they are able to block it in this manner, but 18.1.6 places the responsibility on the thrower to 1. notice and call the defender’s illegal positioning and 2. not throw the disc. This is not the only rule working this way, generally if offense doesn’t notice a breach and plays on, there is no recourse short of 1.2.1.

The important difference between all of the explicit rules and the catch-all (logical bottom) 1.2.1 is that any change in the outcome requires the agreement of both captains, whereas normally disagreement between the teams always sends the disc back.

The opposite rule (logical top) 16.3 (play stands if all parties agree there was no effect) does not have this flaw.