players on the floor-held ball situation

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by M&M Guy

I've always been taught to stick my face in the middle of the pile, while maybe giving a few toots on the whistle. For some reason, players seem to relax and let go when I've got my ugly mug near theirs.

I'm not sure I'd be digging in and pulling them apart, but at least getting close to the players has that tendancy to keep them from going overboard on the tug-o'-war.

That was my question. If you do stick your face in and they still ignore you and just keep a-tugging away, now what? Iow, if they're ignoring the whistle from 15 feet away, what do you do if they ignore the whistle from 3 feet away? If you do try to get between them, you're gonna be causing phyical contact of some kind to a coupla 8 year olds. Do you take the chance of doing that in order to get them to stop? Or do you say "have at it, you l'il sh!ts"?