Friday, January 8, 2010

New overhead interpretation introduced for 2010

At its meeting in November 2009, the FIH’s Hockey Rules Board took the decision to amend the interpretation of Rule 13.2.h – the rule relating to the procedures for taking a free-hits.

The rule itself is unchanged but the following interpretation has been added: "It is permitted to play the ball high above the attacking circle so that it lands outside the circle subject to Rules related to dangerous play and that the ball is not legitimately playable inside or above the circle by another player during its flight."

The main ruling is as follows: “Procedures for taking a free hit, centre pass and putting the ball back into play after it has been outside the field : from a free hit awarded to the attack within the 23 metres area, the ball must not be played into the circle until it has travelled at least 5 metres or has been touched by a player of either team other than the player taking the free hit.”

This interpretation will be applied with effect from January 1, 2010 (ie it will not be applied at any FIH tournaments conducted before 1 January 2010).

The Rules of Hockey 2009 are available by clicking here.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

clear as mud! Queso translate please......in the simplest english possible, i'm a bit slow.

Anonymous said...

interesting play...had anyone tried it in Ireland and got called up for it? or maybe in ehl??

Anonymous said...

Ehh....what?

Anonymous said...

mcnaughton the overhead griswald

Anonymous said...

basically, before this new interpretation if you were in your own attacking 23m you were technically not allowed to directly aerial a free hit across the width of the circle to the other side of the pitch, as it was argued that it was entering the circle before being played 5m. From now on though this can be allowed to happen.

Anonymous said...

Right so u can aerial the ball from the corner spot over the D without moving the ball 5 metres. Dont think it has many other uses or it will be called as dangerous play. Cant see that affecting the game much

Anonymous said...

Not really a new rule, just clearing things up.
Its a nice idea, but in all honesty, when are we going to see a team putting an overhead over the D so its not dangerous and not playable by anybody, and then see the person take it down the other end. Might be a nice idea if you're boxed in and the right or left back gets space and you can put it over, but the success rate is going to be ridiculously low.

Anonymous said...

yeah cookstown did it against garvey in the ulster premier league a couple of months ago and a free out was given after a discussion between the umpires.

Anonymous said...

strange thing is i was just wonderin wud i be able to flick a ball to one of my players over the d wit out gettin a free against me n now thanks to the blog i know the answer!!!!

Anonymous said...

but what if an attacker is offside when you throw it?

Anonymous said...

At last...tried it in way back in 1995 when I just started playing mens hockey [jeez...15 years! Sobs]. Perfect ball from along the side line to other side outside circle to my own player. Both umpires simultaneously screeched on their whistles. There was uproar on the pitch...from my own team...everyone was shouting at me asking what the hell was I doing!

Admitedly I hardly knew any rules and was just about coming to terms with the elimination of the offside rule and Aerials were a really novel thing where people would actually stop playing to admire it in the air!

I guess the world wasn't ready for such visionary play at the time!

Anonymous said...

does this mean a ball can be flicked directly from the free-hit or does it have to be moved then when flicked it can pass over the D