Regarding the guidance mentioned, this is what the current rules say: APPLYING THE RULES The FIH Rules Committee continues to be concerned that some Rules are not applied consistently. Rule 13.2.a: ball stationary at a free hit. Umpires are sometimes not strict enough on requiring the ball to be stationary, albeit very briefly, for a free hit especially if it is taken using a self-pass.
Not sure I agree the defender should be penalised if she had managed to play the ball when retreating. Spot where offense occurred (high ball contact with stick) 3 or 4 metres on Dutch side of halfway, then she is 4 or 5 metres on her side of halfway when ball passes her. So 7 to 9 metres from spot of foul because the Dutch player advances the free hit spot. I don't disagree with flow of game for free hit spot though.
That's the problem: either that's a "correct" spot to take the hit from and therefore we proceed from there, or it's not and it would have needed a quick proactive intervention to get pulled back to the right spot. You can't have it both ways. And I think you're adding a lot of added metres to what I see, but I get it. Good things to think about.
The players being disadvantaged are off the screen. Everyone, forwards and defenders, are all still moving with the same forward momentum as the ball. By the ball advancing at the same pace as the players are moving the forward who has field position in advance of the defender is able to maintain that advantage which is what puts her through on goal. It's what the player taking the free hit spots and why she plays it from where she does. The advantage her player has over the defenders in that moment is maintained and those defenders were not involved in the infringement. The question then becomes "is allowing an attackers advantage to be maintained, disadvantaging the defender".
I don't agree with this analysis at all. The point of the free hit rule is not to stop the player's momentum who has been fouled, but to show the spot where the free hit was so that 5m is clear. You're ignoring that there was an initial infringement by the defending team which stopped good hockey from happening, and by forcing that fouled player to change their momentum you're compounding that.
@@nikipedia2818 And my rebuttal to that remains that the entire defensive structure has benefitted from the foul committed by their teammates right around the ball already, and they should not gain more benefit from slowing down that attacker even further.
@@FHumpires So your rubutral to a thing you said is to reiterate a different thing you said later? Again, I'm simply pointing out that you gave a criterion that if applied beyond the situation on the screen to the entire pitch undermines your conclusion. I even spoon fed you the conclusion (that the question is whether an existing advantage should be maintained) which you interpreted as me ignoring the point I had just highlighted. The answer is simple. You just need to clarify that allowing an attacker to maintain an advantage by not being the ball back ISN'T disadvantaging the defender. You might also want to go into how retreating defenders need to act to avoid committing a secondary infringement when the ball is still moving and what leeway does the attacker have? When does natural momentum maintaining an existing advantage turn into the creation of a new advantage? How far can the ball reasonably move from the infringement? How long does the attacker have to look for an option before playing the ball? It seems that if you do a reductio ad absurdum it highlights some problems.
