Men's Section Rules Update
December 08, 2017
The following circular was sent to Men's Clubs on 07th December. All club Fixtures Secretaries and Team Captains should be made aware of these changes.
To All Club Secretaries (please forward as appropriate):
A quick note on some important issues:
In Summary (details below)
- Some small changes have been made to the Bye-Laws (Click Here)
- Cancelled/Postponed Games: home team required to update LHA website
- The Postponement Request Form has been updated, and is stricter (Click Here)
- Matchcards must be filled out and with legitimate players
- We will be get stricter about players being added to cards after matches
- There are still a number of unnecessary fines.
Bye-Law Changes
There have been a number of small changes the Bye-Laws mostly to fix simple typos. Version VF2017c of the Bye-Laws is attached. The updated bye-laws are also available in the "About Us" Section of the LHA website.
There are only two significant changes:
- Section 3.5.4 - which now says that postponements can only be explicitly granted. You cannot assume you have a postponement, just because you have received no response.
- The first paragraph of section 3.5.4 has been moved to 3.5. There has been some confusion about updating the LHA website where there is a postponement. Every change to any fixture must updated on the website. If a match has been postponed, normally the new time is not immediately available, in that case, a note to indicate that the match has been postponed is enough to avoid a fine.
Cancelled/Postponed Games
Section 3.5 of the Bye-Laws requires the home team to update the LHA website if there is any change to the fixture - this includes cancellations and postponements. The letter of the law requires that the new fixture time is put in, but this is generally not practical, as that normally has not been agreed. A comment such as "Not Played", "PP by xyz" or "Postponed" - is adequate.
(I believe that responding 'C' to the text message will insert such a comment. But you do need to check.)
Request for Postponement Form
This form has been updated to reflect our experiences over the past few months. It is important to note that if you cannot find a specific Reason for a Postponement, then you don't have one, and you shouldn't expect one. The updated form is also available in the "About Us" Section of the LHA website.
Requirement to Fill Out Matchcards
This season there has been a marked increase in the number of clubs being fined for putting players on their matchcards. We believe this is due to increased vigilance rather than an upsurge in offenders.
Remember - all players must be listed on the matchcards. As this is fundamental to our enforcement of the bye-laws, no quarter is given in these cases. The fine is €125.
Also, it is extremely rare that a player is not listed that is eligible to play - please be very careful when selecting player for a team. If they are not listed on the matchcard web-app, then they are probably not eligible, and you should avoid playing them.
Number of Players on the Matchcard at Tip Off
This initiative has been very successful - while also bearing a lot of criticism.
Up to now, 7 players were required on the match cards. In the new year, that is going to get more restrictive. For Division 1 matches, adding more than 1 player after tip-off will result in a fine; for Division 2, 2 players will be allowed, and so on down to Division 7 (7 players). A minimum of 7 players will still be required.
The actual requirement is that the player lists are filled out completely before the match by all teams. That we allow leeway is a bending of the rules that we are phasing out.
Fines
On a similar vein, there are still a number of clubs who are being fined for incomplete matchcards. At this stage, this is really down to a discipline failure within those clubs.
There are only two fines that we issue in respect of matchcards:
- 7 players must be on the matchcard at tip-off
- The completed matchcard must be submitted before midnight on the day of the match.
This should not be difficult.
As mentioned above, if your home match is postponed - you must update the Leinster Website. Putting the letters PP in the comment is plenty to avoid a fine.
We am genuinely sorry that some clubs are unhappy with the fines they are getting - it's not our intention upset anyone, and we are fully aware that clubs don't have money to be wasting on fines. But at this stage, these fines should really be unnecessary. So please make a concerted effort to make that so.
Men's Committee
