Strange situation

[TimTaylor]

Originally Posted by illini

rule 5.3.3, case book page 17, situation C after the first referee whistles and signals for the serve, the second referee sounds the whistle for a substitution.
Ruling: incorrect procedure, the ball is dead, substitution is denied, and a new whistle and signal for serve is given.

In my defense on this rule, I am substituting the word sub for time out, in either case the 2nd referee blew a whistle. By rule, you recognize the whistle, replay, sub and or time out is denied!

I do agree with MCbear, that no card is warranted in this situation. However, disagree with the fact the statement it is a free pass of allowing the subs. It is an inadverant whistle by R2, replay any corrective actions/timeouts are denied, by rule.

If you look in the casebook at 11.2.1 Sit. A (a/b) it says the ruling is replay - neither timeout nor substitution is granted. Only caveat is that it is talking about the receiving team requesting the timeout, not the serving team, and in the comment it notes the reason for granting a replay is the coach's actions distracted the opponents serve. Note that it does not say whether or not the R2 acknowledged the request.....

If we don't grant the substitution request by the team R in this situation, it seems to me that allowing team S to do a replacement in the same situation is giving them an unfair advantage. I think this is another area where the wording of the rules hasn't caught up with the integration of the libero.

As I said earlier, the R2 really screwed the pooch. What they should have done is ignored the request by coach S, - if the server doesn't get the serve off in the required 5 seconds, it's the coach's own fault for distracting her own server - not up to us to bail them out on this.