This article was revised in October 2005.
Further additions are being considered.
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Max Hooper .
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After watching the stroke, you need to be able
to answer three questions:
- Q 1 Did a roquet occur?
- Q 2 If the answer to Question 1 is "no",
then did the target ball move or shake?
- Q 3 If the answer to Question 1 is "yes",
was it a hoop and roquet?
Most of this discussion will be on Question
1, because it is the hardest to answer, but we will
deal with the other questions as well.
You may argue that Questions 2 and 3 do
not always apply. For example, Question 2 does not matter
unless the adversary was responsible for the position
of the target ball, but you shouldn't ask
if he was. Not yet anyway. There are several reasons:
- You may draw a player's attention to a matter
he had overlooked.
- You seldom need to know, and if you do you
can ask after the stroke.
So if you ask
before the stroke you may waste the players' time. An
umpire is there to help players have a good
game,
not to waste their time.
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If the target ball is outside the jaws of the hoop or
is just inside.
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This is not the commonest
case, but we deal with it first because
it is so clear cut. Perhaps this is why
it is the only case that some writers discuss.
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Look at the picture on the
left. Red is the striker's ball.
If red hits the hoop upright instead of the blue,
where will the blue go?
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The next picture below gives the answer. A line has
been drawn through the centre of the upright and the
centre of the blue. We call it the line of centres. This
is a good guide to where the blue will go. You
may like to put a marker on this line, at least while you are learning.
(Be careful about putting a marker
where a ball might go in a real game. The
marker can cause the ball to change direction.)
Does it matter what part of the upright is hit
by the red?
Not much. The blue will be deviated by
pull, just as in a croquet stroke, but seldom by more
than a few degrees.
If the blue goes roughly along this line, can you be
sure that the red hit the upright and there was no roquet?
You can be sure that the red hit the upright, but you
cannot be sure there was no roquet. The red might have
touched the edge of the hoop and bounced on to the blue.
If so, it would have caused the blue to deviate, but maybe
not by much. So you will have to watch.
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Where will the blue go if the red hits it?
It depends on just where it hits. The third picture
on the left shows one possibility. This time, the line
of centres of the red and blue balls is drawn, but the blue may
not quite follow this line because of pull.
If the blue goes roughly along this line, can
you be sure a roquet occurred?
Yes.
What is the angle between the two lines of centres?
It varies depending on what part of the blue is hit,
but the angle between the two lines is always over thirty
degrees, although this is reduced a bit by pull.
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What happens if the blue is close to the upright but
doesn't touch it?
The blue will travel along the same line
as if it had been touching the upright, but it may not go so far or so
fast. Sometimes it will just shake. Sometimes it won't move at
all.
How far must the ball be from the upright before it
will not even shake?
Too hard to predict. It depends on so
many factors. Sometimes a ball 1 mm from an upright will not move.
Sometimes a ball 50 mm away will shake clearly.
Can you
tell if the red hit the blue by watching how far the blue
travelled?
Yes, but it needs practice. A ball travels
further and faster when it is hit by another ball compared to when the
impact comes via a hoop, but beginners may not realise how far a ball can
go if it is hit indirectly. You will need to watch quite a few shots
before you are confident.
If the target ball moves very
little, it is likely it was moved via the hoop.
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The bottom picture on the left shows a
difficult case.
The striker wants to send red through the hoop. For this to happen, the red must hit the right upright, and this
will cause the blue to move.
If the blue moves just a little, the red will roquet it after it runs the hoop. If the blue moves a lot, it will move away from the path of the red, and there will be no
roquet.
If the red moves slowly enough, you can see and hear the roquet. If it goes fast, you must rely on the direction the blue travels. This is a good time to put down a marker. |
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A few principles:
1. If you see the
striker's ball contact the other ball, the hard part
of your work is over. A roquet has been made.
2.
If you see the striker's ball hit the hoop, nothing
is settled yet. The striker's ball can bounce off the
hoop on to the target ball. It may even bounce away
from the target ball and then curve round to hit it.
So
you must keep you eyes on the striker's ball until it
either comes to rest or contacts the other ball.
You
will soon learn - I hope - to keep you eyes on the striker's
ball. You will soon learn to recognise if it hits the
target ball full on. The hard cases are where you are
sure it hit the hoop but it might also have grazed the
target ball.
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If the target ball is in the jaws
of the hoop |
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This case is more complicated, because the target ball can
bounce between the uprights, and its final course may be
hard to predict. So you sometimes must take note of
where the striker's ball goes
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Look at the picture on the left. If the red hits the hoop, the blue will bounce
between the uprights, maybe several times. It may stay there or it may leave the
hoop on one side. If the blue projects more to one side to begin with, that is
where it is most likely to go - but not always.
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Below are four cases where the red hits different
points:
Figure 1 on the left shows an easy
case. If the red hits the blue this way, the blue will leave
the hoop without touching either upright, and will travel
further and faster than you may expect. (In this case, it
should also be easy to see the red hit the blue.)
In
Figure 2, the blue will hit the right upright before it leaves
the hoop. Its final direction is hard to predict, but
everything will look different compared to Figure 3, where the red
hits only the upright.
In Figure 3, the blue may pause before
it leaves the hoop, and will not travel so far. Try it and
see. (Also in Figure 3, the red goes in a direction that would
not be possible after a roquet.)
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| Figure 4 shows the difficult case where the red hits
the hoop first and then the blue.
This can be difficult. In
theory, the striker's ball will change direction twice,
once when it hits the hoop and once when it hits the
other ball, but this usually happens too fast to see.
A
better test is to note how the target ball moves - if
it does. If there is a roquet, the target ball is more
likely to go through the hoop. With no roquet, it is
more likely to bounce between the uprights - or perhaps
not move at all.
But you must also allow for the position
of the target ball. If it bulges more towards you, it
is more likely to bounce between the uprights. If it
is further away from you in the hoop, it is more likely
to pass through the hoop, whether it is roqueted or
not. You will need a lot of practice before you are
confident with these different positions.
The sounds
can be very helpful. If there is no roquet, you normally
hear a single sharp sound as the ball hits the hoop.
With a roquet, you expect to hear a characteristic double sound - the two impacts
are at a different pitch.
Comments on the sounds:
I tend to distrust claims that sounds are useful to an umpire, but I have much more confidence
with this case. The sound of a ball hitting a hoop varies
so much under different conditions that it is not worth
trying to predict it. The real point is that the sound
is nearly always at a different pitch from the sound
of one ball hitting another.
Sometimes the second
sound is so much quieter that it will cause you trouble.
If the red hits only the hoop, it may behave
in special ways. To see these, try hitting your ball at a
hoop without having a second ball nearby. You can see some of the ways your ball can travel
in the Appendix.
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Two
special cases when the target ball is in the hoop but bulges towards you |
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Look at the figure on the left. The blue is touching the left upright but it projects towards you out of the hoop. If the red hits the upright, the blue will move along the line of centres at
first. It will quickly bounce off the right upright and then travel towards you. This may surprise you if you haven't seen it before - so try it out.
I
must warn you that the striker is likely
to disbelieve you. Unfortunately even active
players may not know as much as they think
about unusual cases.
Now
repeat the test with a gap between the blue and the
upright. Even with a small gap, the blue may not move at all.
If the blue travels towards you, can you say that a roquet did not occur? Sometimes, but look at the next case.
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Look at the next figure on the left. The blue is near the right upright. The red hits the blue at a point on the line of centres of the upright and the blue. Try this on the lawn, and you will
find the blue bounces back toward you. This can work even if the blue is an inch from the upright, but it doesn't work if the red hits any other part of the blue. To put it another way, it works only if the red hits the
blue at a point where the centre of the red, the centre of the blue and the centre of the upright are all in a straight line or nearly so.
Can you tell the
last two cases apart? Yes, the striker's ball approaches from a
different direction. Another guide is that the first case
works only if the blue is touching the near upright or is very close to it, but the second case does not seem possible unless there is quite a gap between the blue and the near upright.
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| Close Calls
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The picture on the left is a close up view just before the impact. The red will hit the hoop upright in about five milliseconds. It may just touch the blue and bounce on to the hoop, or it may
just miss the blue. If it hits the blue, a roquet has been made. If not, there is no roquet because the red will bounce towards the left side of the picture.
Your eyes are not sharp enough to see the
contact between the red and the blue, if it occurs. So you must depend on watching how the blue moves. |
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The next two pictures show the red coming from the same direction and hitting the hoop on the same spot. But in one case the red misses the blue. In the other, the red curves and makes a
roquet. Why the difference? In the second case, the red has top spin. There are several possible reasons, but the most likely one is that the red has traveled further. You cannot predict this, and you just
have to watch. |
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Some things have to be noted at the right
time.
| Before the stroke:
Can you predict which
way the target ball will go if the striker's ball hits the hoop? If so,
memorise it or even put down a marker.
If the
target ball is well within the jaws of the hoop, you have no time to consider
everything that ight happen. The most you can do is to
memorise the position of the centre of the
ball and the distance of the ball from the
nearest upright. This should be enough to
let you work out a difficult case if you
have to.
If there any
possibility of a hoop and roquet, don't say anything, but make a
visual test on whether the target ball is within the jaws of the hoop.
All this should take no more than two seconds.
During the
stroke:
Short term memory is trickier than
most people realise. You will see many things during the stroke but three
seconds later you will be lucky to remember even five significant items.
So make sure of the
important items.
Start by watching the
striker until he starts his stroke. Otherwise you may be unsighted. If you
stand with your back to him, you will have to bend
round
Some umpires can see better if they
follow the striker's ball to the hoop. Some older ones prefer to watch
the region of the hoop, because their eyes do not change focus quickly. In
either case, be watching the region of the hoop before the striker's ball
gets there
Make up your mind to note
if the target ball moves on impact, but apart from that, watch the
striker's ball both before and after impact.
If you do this you will remember the main
points:
Did the striker's
ball contact the target
ball at any stage?
What
movement, if any, occurred in the target ball?
Did
you hear the typical double sound described
above?
If there was no roquet, some referees
have trouble noting whether the target ball
moved. This is a problem in short term memory.
If you do not pay attention to this point
at the
time, your
memory will be a blank a few seconds later.
If
you have this problem, you should make up
your mind in advance to notice how both
balls move, and get a friend to play a series
of practice strokes. You can learn to watch both
things automatically.
After the stroke:
If
you stop and think, the striker may pick up the striker's ball. It is up
to you whether you stop him, but in any case memorise where the striker's
ball went before he moves it.
When you make
up your mind, say if it was a roquet or
not. Don't just walk away.
If
you decide that it was not a roquet, Regulation
5(f) forbids you to say whether the target
ball moved unless a player asks you.
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| Matters for discussion
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How much detail can you see?
If a ball is still, some people can see detail down to a tenth of a millimetre. If the ball is crossing your field of vision fast, you will have trouble seeing
detail to the nearest half centimetre. This problem is worst if you look down from a bird's eye position. So where should you stand?
Some people will tell you where to stand, but they will never tell you why to choose that spot. In fact no controlled experiments have been published that show where an
umpire sees best.
The only advice I can give is to make sure you understand the problems, then get a friend to hit a lot of these strokes from different angles at different speeds, and work out where you feel you
see best. But do it on a practice lawn - not in a match. For
what it is worth, I stand a yard from the hoop, or a
little more, facing the hoop and close to the line of aim of the striker.
In any case, keep your shadow away from the hoop. Also, practice standing still and relaxed for ten seconds or more, and don't wear clothes that flap in the
wind.
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What if you realise you made a mistake?
If you wake up before another stroke has been played, admit it and correct it.
If you find out too late, the main thing is not to let it
get you down. It happens to everyone. At least make sure you learn from the mistake. What if the decision is close and you cannot make up your mind?
If you are the adversary, you are bound by Law 48(f). So if you are unsure whether a ball was hit, you must generally rule that it was. If you are unsure if a ball moved,
you must generally rule that it did.
If you are an official referee or umpire in a match,
the law is less clear, but you may still feel you should follow Law 48(f).
Your
only other official help is Regulation
7(b) in Australia, R4 in England, or 21 in New Zealand.
They tell you to decide doubtful matters to the best
of your ability.
. Some people may tell you to give the striker the benefit of the doubt, but there
is nothing in the laws or regulations
to support this, and the idea
is incompatible with Law 48(f).
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APPENDIX
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How a ball bounces off a
hoop
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If the red hits only the hoop, it may behave in special ways. To
see some of these, you should practice hitting your ball at a hoop without
having a second ball nearby. Look to the left to see some of the ways
the ball can travel.
It may bounce back toward you. This cannot
happen if the striker's ball hits another ball unless the
target ball is next to a hoop, and only if it is hit on the
right spot. Even then it won't bounce back as
far. |
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But look at the next
case, where the red hits the blue, then the hoop, and bounces back
obliquely. This can happen if the blue is most of the way
through to the other side of the
hoop |
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Sometimes the striker's ball travels in a curved path
after impact. The curve is usually due to top spin. The ball travels in a straight line for a little while before it
curves. The direction of the straight line is what counts. (If you
practice from close to the hoop, you may not see the effect of top
spin. In a real game, the stroke may be played from some distance
away, and the striker's ball may curve a lot. You can get some top
spin in your practice by tilting the mallet forward while you
hit.) |
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If your ball hits the side of the hoop, it may
travel to a spot that it could not have reached if a roquet had been
made.
Look at the next picture. If the red touches the
blue, it cannot travel in a direction north of the black line,
because it would be deflected by the hoop. But if the red hits the
upright but not the blue, it can travel along any of the gray
lines.
So if the red travels along any of the gray lines, it has
NOT made a roquet - but don't be misled if the red curves to a point
north of the black line because of top spin.
On the
other hand, if the red ends up south of the black line, you can't
deduce anything.
It is worth putting a marker down
on the black line.
The picture shows the red moving
towards left upright. Can you work out how to apply this rule if it
was moving towards the right upright? |
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Now look at the next picture on the left. If the red
hits the hoop but not the blue, it must travel south of the black
line, at least to begin with. So if it begins in a direction north
of this line, you know that a roquet was made - but don't be tricked
if the red curves because of top spin.
Again, you
should put a marker down on the black line. |
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