Advice about net faults for new officials
 

I was helping out with some new officials earlier this week. We had a play where the team's first contact was a pass that was very tight to the net. The setter chose to "bump set" the ball and she hit the bottom of the net on her follow-through. Newbie had nothing.

On a normal play, where the ball is being played near the top of the net, we tell the R2 to look for net contact starting at the top of the net; then the middle; then the bottom of the net; then check the center line. So they have that top-middle-bottom sequence drilled into them.

What's the best way to explain to them how to adjust to that bad pass and anticipate contact at the bottom of the net first? All I could tell think of to tell this R2 is that the anticipation comes with experience and it'll become easier with more reps. That just sounded lame coming out of my mouth.

What could I have told her that would be more practical as she starts out?

(By the way, how scary is it that I'm giving advice to new volleyball officials???)

I think your advice is sound *one the attack is about to me made* as a general rule, but I like to focus my eyes primarily on where the fault is most likely to occur. In your example, there's no sense in focusing on the top of the net when the fault most likely to occur is nowhere near that. Similar to the concept of secondary transition, we have our default, and we have what we need to do based on what the play has laid out for us.

Take in the clues around you, focus on that, and adjust accordingly to what happens next.

Thanks so much for responding to this one, Felix. I tried to say something like that, but I didn't really have any advice on how to actually do it. I'm not sure a first- or second-year official would even see the clues that you and I are talking about.

I'd like to have some concrete (practical) advice if it should come up again this week, but I can't come up with any.

I try to go bottom-to-top and then top-to bottom.

In your play, the second part never happened, and us9ing the first part of the sequence would get (we'd hope) the fault.