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how to deal with excessive contact

14s players facing very heavy contact in their games. Short players but skillful - coming off the court injured and upset. How to coach to deal with this?

Karen WillettsCoach, Australia

1 answer

ANSWERS

Graeme PulhamReferee, New Zealand

I would encourage your team captain to query the umpires at a break on the level of contact allowed. If there is contact interfering with the game then it should be penalised. This will hopefully alert the umpires to what is going on if they are missing it. If the contact is part of "Fair Contest" and no foul play is involved (e.g. elbows, shoving with hips or shoulders etc) then the umpires will probably ignore it. Most of this will depend on the expertise of the umpires you have for your game.

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