End of the skirt

Another thing that came out of this School of Excellence was that we are no longer supposed to do a skirt to signal a foul that the AR saw that leads to a PK for the attacking team. We are now supposed to run to the corner flag, and if we want to sell it, come in on the end line a bit to indicate that.

I have to admit, I must be getting old. I don't really know why we would change the skirt (unless we were the only ones doing it) because this seems to me like something that makes sense until it doesn't. And there is one scenario that comes to mind where I would rather have my AR give me a skirt instead of sprinting down 10-15 yards to the corner flag to tell me that they want a PK. That scenario is when I don't want one. If I as the center, think I have a better view of the play and it is not a PK what my AR is telling me, with the skirt, I can wave them down. If, however, she is sprinting to the corner flag and I want to wave her down, I have to wait until they get there and then tell them to get back into position because play has continued quite possibly since they decided to take off for the corner flag.

I also think it might generate a bit of confusion, because if it is not a clear cut penalty in my book, then it could be that a defender behind me is racing towards the goal line and therefore my AR is just keeping up with the second to last defender. In other words, the procedure by which you come to the conclusion that it is a PK has to be good because if I miss the flag indicating the need for my attention, and I see the AR only running towards the corner flag, I could think that there is a defender or something that requires my AR to be there. However, if I miss the flag trying to get my attention but see the skirt, I still know that the AR wants to call a PK, because the skirt was only used in two occasions, the PK and the encroachment of the keeper on a PK.

Finally, the fact that my AR is so out of position, kind of forces me to comply with their request to call the PK, because otherwise, they may be seriously out of position and cannot help me with an offside or some other call. So yeah, I am not in favor of the new method of signaling for a PK from the AR. I will try and get clarification from those that know more than I do as to why this change in philosophy.