Had a game this week that left me puzzling. Ladies' game, reasonably high standard. Not a lot of bad fouls but players niggling about elbowing which I did not see. In second half yellow team player is downed when red player steps into her path deliberately. I immediately whistled for a foul and called on yellow coach as player stayed down. He entered and started telling me strongly that I needed to card the red team player. I had not considered it that bad a challenge and told him to just get on with treating his player. At this point the yellow player (this is adult) starts actually crying with pain, and it becomes clear that she has some kind of collar bone problem. The coach, still complaining that I was not protecting his player and telling me I need to at least talk to the opposition player, subs her off and we carry on.
My problem: my first thought was it was nothing but a simple foul. As the extent of her injury became clear, I started having serious doubts and wondered if I should have carded the other player or spoken to them. Except that after the coach's words it would have looked like I was just reacting because of what he said. Any advice on how to play this sort of incident?
My problem: my first thought was it was nothing but a simple foul. As the extent of her injury became clear, I started having serious doubts and wondered if I should have carded the other player or spoken to them. Except that after the coach's words it would have looked like I was just reacting because of what he said. Any advice on how to play this sort of incident?