An interesting situation occurred in a recent college game. College rules do not allow unlimited substitutions – whenever a player is replaced, (s)he is ineligible to return for the remainder of that period. As a result, college coaches may have limited opportunities to give second-string players game experience in close games.
The game was easy and one sided. After about 25 minutes, the referee had only called two fouls and the score was home team 5 – visitors nil. The home team coach put in the entire second string. About 10 minutes later, fatigue became a factor for the visitors (who had no subs). They began to lose focus and commit silly fouls because they were a step slower. In each case, the home team retained possession and the referee called “advantage.”
At half time, the home coach came to the officiating team and asked us not to call “advantage” because he wanted his players to have the game experience of immediately putting the ball into play with a quick kick.
What would you decide?

I can't see changing how the game is called for the coach to conduct practice. Even if I did, setting that precedent and misleading all concerned would stop me.

Just because the fouled team retains possesion doesn't mean we apply advantage...and we don't HAVE to apply advantage ALL the time.

I think I'd start blowing the whistle, especially at this level. Nothing will turn a blowout into a brouhaha faster than if you let one team chip on the other. I'd also think you need to think about pulling out the yellow card for Persistent Infringement.

You're not turning the game into practice, but you also need to keep the game in control.

Obviously this was a coach who has some sense. He was smart enough to put in all of his subs during a blowout, so that his best players wouldn't get beaten up. With that in mind, I don't think that he really cared about his subs practicing quick restarts. I think that he was telling you guys in a rather clever way that he thought his guys were getting whacked too much and he wanted the fouls called in the hope that it would stop the other team from continuing to play like this in the second half.
How would I handle this coach's request? Well, I never change the way I officiate based on the comments of a coach, but we do have an obligation to protect the health of the players and if you went into the dressing room at halftime and said, "Boy the visitors sure are fouling a lot," then you should do something about it.
Remember you can still play advantage and then come back and caution a player later. This is a rather severe method of dealing with the problem, but it is effective. Then again, it was 5-0, so you may just wish to forget advantage and call the fouls because they really don't care about more goals at that point.

Again, the game was easy. The "advantage" that he objected to the most was a deliberate handball at midfield. Player safety was never an issue.
We listened politely and then discussed it among ourselves. One of us had no opinion, one did not understand the request and one felt that a game has different dynamics at different times and should be called based upon those dynamics not based upon what had happened before (I assume, this official would have called it tighter if frustration were a factor and cheap fouls were being committed.)

[Edited by KYRef2 on Oct 10th, 2003 at 11:53 AM]