What would you do?

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by Mregor

(quoted personal attack deleted) And you are correct, fighting doesn't need contact and if the player who allegedly was allegedly tripped retaliated and took a swing at the defender on the ground, they both would be charged with fighting as his act caused the opponent to retaliate, regardless if he grabbed his foot or not. Again, that's not the what happened. OP wasn't even sure if there was contact. Without contact, I still have nothing regardless of so called intent. I'd talk to coach and let him handle it.

Years ago I gave a flagrant T to a kid based on what I thought was intent. Still regret it as in hindsight, I'm not 100% sure. Usually the only T's I regret are the ones I don't issue.

(reference to personal shot deleted)

Now if you want to be precise, your reply above contains a generality which should be cleaned up. Not just any act which causes an opponent to retaliate by fighting would get classified by rule as fighting itself, but rather only an unsporting act which causes that retaliation. So if an official did not deem the attempted trip to be unsporting or an actual trip involving contact wasn't ruled flagrant on its own (perhaps the official only charged a normal personal foul or an intentional personal foul), then any fighting retaliation would not cause the original fouler to be automatically DQ'd by rule.