Game, Set or Match?
I admit it. I'm a purist. I want the old game of volleyball back. You know, the one where you could only earn points when you served, where you couldn't get the ball up with your foot, where a net was a net no matter when it occurred and where a serve had to clear the net completely or it was an error. Oh, and if you ran out of subs, your worst passer had to play back row. You know, traditional volleyball.
This anything-goes, let-the-kids-play, devil-may-care volleyball is not my favorite. I mean, what other sport has gone through such a transformation in the last 15 years? Could you imagine what fans would do if the rules of basketball changed this drastically? Go ahead, LeBron, dropkick the ball through the hoop -- it counts!
But hey, I'm handling it. At least I was until I read in the '08-'09 rulebook about how the term 'game' has now been changed to 'set.' It is starting to seem like the powers that be are changing things just for the sake of change.
What was wrong with calling them games? Are we trying to be more like tennis? Well, tennis has games and sets. And unlike tennis, volleyball already has a skill called a set. Frankly, I find the whole thing a little confusing and a lot unnecessary.
It might be time for volleyball fans everywhere to rise up and protest these arbitrary rule changes before the game we love becomes completely unrecognizable. Who's with me??
Comments
The rule changes in volleyball were not arbitrary. The goal behind them is to make the game more interesting/inclusive.
first wave of change : service can touch the net, you can score regardless of who has the serve. This was made to make the sets shorter and with more points, faster.
Then another major change was the introduction of the libero. Once again it was not arbitrary but to give opportunity of high level to shorter players. Now you have the new generation of liberos and some of them were never spikers (it’s the case of exiga, the libero of team france).
Now the very last changes : net touches counted only if you play the ball and touch the top of the net, fast subsitition rule, penetration rule and of course, the new squishier ball. All those changes have one goal : prolungate the rallies and suppress as much as possible the down time due to technicalities. So what if a player brushes the net on his way down with his shirt. Is that *really* such a terrible mistake ? You are making the comparison with basketball, but typically there are no such limiting rules where a “virtual” contact (such as a shirt touching a net) means a fault.
I think one can discuss the new rules one by one and find something bad about them. For instance in my case I am not sure about the new penetration rules because whether it is a foot or a hand i think the governing principle should be safety. Whereby either both partial foot penetration and the rest of the body (which as you probably know is now allowed to penetrate under the net) should be banned if it interferes with the game, or wheter it interferes with the game or not (As a precaution).
BUT to say that the rule changes since the time you had to have the serve to score points have been arbitrary is not an accurate description of the reality of the game.
I’m with you Beverly. Not all change is good change. To me, one of the most special parts of volleyball (and baseball for that matter) is the lack of a clock. Even a 12-7 score in a traditional non-rally scoring contest was anyone’s game to win. Now, a team up by 5 with 3 points to victory is all but assured a win. They can simply trade side-outs the rest of the way.
To score a point in competitive volleyball is truly impressive. A side-out is far less so. They were once treated very differently. Now, they’re both were one. Humbug.
I get Michael’s point. On the other hand, to get this 4 points difference, points had to be scored otherwise than side-out, which means that this difference can be retrieved in the same way. In that sense, it doesn’t seem more infair i think.
I agree with both sides here. As a coach and ex-player I still believe you should have to earn your points, but I do see the relevance of rally on dumps, kills, blocks, etc..service errors are so boring from a scoring standpoint. I love having a libero. It helps me play 10 young ladies with different abilities and levels and helps them learn teamwork and trust. I don’t like that the libero cannot spike above the height of the net, seems rather picky over who can and can’t use their skills. I hate the under rule, but agree with the interference concept. A player makes a great save or play at the net only to have it taken away because she stepped on or over the line…come on! I also don’t like the calls on 2nd hit/contact. I feel if you pass the ball close enough to the net and a hitter/blocker can reach it or kill it, you better improve your passing. Most of all, I think that if they are going to keep changing/adding/deleting then the officials need to be better trained and much more consistant with “like” calls. No matter what, I will still coach and teach the best I can and use forums like these to learn and keep in the know.
I agree with you completely. The changes have taken a lot from the game of volleyball. A point on every serve, not good for the game. Playing the ball with your feet, disgusting! All this incidental net contact stuff is rediculous. Taking a lot of skill out of the game and a lot of the fun and challenge. A lot are just to cut down on the playing time!!
I’ve been playing for 35 years and coaching for 25 years (give or take a couple), so I have a little longevity of perspective on the subject! As far as I’m concerned the evolution of the game hasn’t necessarily made it better, just different.
Most of the rule changes since the late 80s have originated with the FIVB and are primarily based upon the need to fit the international/Olympic game into a more easily managed television format. Television means greater exposure and that equates to revenue.
Rally scoring was the very first effort to condense the game… the first to 25 fit into a pretty predictable time frame whether you were talking two sets or five. I don’t remember too much complaining about the scoring change.
Most of the other rule changes have also had their genesis in attempting to speed up the game by eliminating some of the more common body/ball control fouls. While this has had the intended effect of speeding up the game the trade-off has been what I see as a pretty significant decline in overall player skills. Rather than requiring greater skills to speed the game we simply restructured the rules to no longer sanction the common fouls.
You now have players who specialize by position and really don’t possess enough in the way of skills beyond those required for their position. Case in point was the 2008 U.S. Men’s Olympic team. We had an awesome opposite hitter who couldn’t serve, pass, or hit from the back row to save his life… at least not at the level he was playing. But give him a good set and he was golden!
This is modern volleyball. I deal with it, but I still cringe when I see a let serve, a double/triple contact, net contact, a thrown overhand pass or a badly mangled set… because it seems like not all that long ago that the game required better skills out of everybody who played it.
Basketball rules have changed. You can now take 2 or 3 steps before traveling is called. Intentional fouls are not automatically technicals. You can hang on the rim all you want. And the men no longer wear shorts…they wear coulottes.
I always felt that the let serve was the concession they gave to the serving team for instituting rally scoring. Actually, this is the major difference between rally and sideout scoring. If you take any rally scored game and score it as sideout, the same team wins, or at least is ahead at the end…unless there were any let serves.
I sure agree with you about “sets” Is that some sort of French word for ‘game’ that the FIVB uses? In that case is the ‘t’ silent?
I’m a purist too and I hate almost all of these new rules. I especially hate rally scoring. I remember coming back from down 14-0 back in the sideout days a couple of times. How much more exciting do you want, a team falling apart, can’t finish the game on-serve. The other team making blocks, playing defense. I do like the libero rule and i live with the sloppy ball-handling but here’s a rule I just loathe. The fact that game 5 is played to 15 points. Really? It’s necessary to cut the final and most important game down a few minutes and award the match to the team with the momentum in the middle of this particular GAME. I mean, two teams battle evenly for 4 GAMES and the whole thing is decided by a half-game. By the way, I coach High School and my team has never been too tired in that 5th game to play a whole game. Nor has time-constraint been even close to an issue, it’s not like we’re getting close to 10PM here…
Rally Point Scoring is a FOOL’S FIRE
Ignus Fatuus Volleyball
Affliction…(1:5)
When the Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) disemboweled volleyball of its side-out scoring system, they eviscerated the sport of some of its most prolific competitive features.
Symptom…(2:5)
If the FIVB had any sense of balance, intuitive perceptions, or integral rational when they attempted to remodel volleyball’s scoring system, they would have benefited far better, if they would have put more mental effort into working with the intrinsic values of volleyball’s side-out scoring system. The serve is the catalyst by which this kind of team net sport best operates.
Diagnosis…(3:5)
Under the rallypoint scoring system, the team in service is handicapped with the serve, and the receiving team is in the dilemma of having the scoring advantage for the disadvantages of the serve. Rallypoint’s anemic, self inflicting, and unearned point scoring system and its anticlimactic methods of winning set or game, are not examples of how anomalies may have to be solved when working to develop an equitable offensive and defensive scoring system.
Therapy…(4:5)
Under the side-out scoring system, a served ball is a challenge and a threat because it can’t be penalized error points to the advantage of the receiving team. However, it is the responsibility of the team with serve to provoke a competitive situation of cause and effect. When a team in service fails to fulfill the character of its role, a penalty situation would be defined and enforced: A penalty where a point would be lost.
If a service team fails in its responsibility to successfully challenge its opponents off the serve, it should be penalized a point. From this method, a service team’s opponent would benefit by increasing its lead, reducing the service team’s lead, or gaining the lead if both teams are tied. But, there would be no unearned points awarded, non competitive action would be devalued, and each team would have to gain set/game point off its earned points and competitive skills.
However, in order for the serve to be valuable enough to compete for in an offensive and defensive side-out scoring system, the receiving team would be limited to two hits off a served ball and three hits during volley.
And, only the first serve of the person rotating into the service position would be subject to penalty. Otherwise, all that would be created would be an inversion of the sport under the rallypoint scoring system, where every non-competitive action off any serve, is an unearned point.
Antecedent…(5:5)
The descriptions written up under “Therapy” of how to develop an offensive and defensive side-out scoring system are not suggestions, they are instructions. The basic ideas, as they have been described, come from the creation of the first team net sport of this kind responsible for the concept, development, and competition of offensive (volley) and defensive (rally) scoring.
In the process of designing and modifying the side-out scoring system for offensive and defensive scoring, it was essential to the success of the project to experiment with new ideas. The products of those efforts included unrestricted hitting and kicking, multiple point scoring, penalty point, vertical areas of scoring, and a quarter set system of play in which a team could win a game by the total amount of points scored after four sets of play.
And, every game with four 25 points sets takes a little less or a little more than one hour to play.
As an old school player/coach, it’s seems obvious to me why the game was played as it was originally intended.
The strict contact/fault rules, along with having to rotate is what forced players to be skilled in all aspects of the game.
Smaller players with superior ball handling skills could be just as effective (and sometimes more) as the big players that are dominating the game now.
Sloppiness, in general, has taken the place of finesse for the sake of television and the spectator. This is sad for the people who loved the game for what it once was.
As a girls JO coach for the past several years, I’m just appalled at the ball handling that I see at the tournaments.
Side-out scoring with rally scoring for a tie breaker is the superior method for the players for sure.
The libero is the only good change that comes to mind.
Rally Point Scoring is a Fool’s Fire
The receiving team is allowed two hits to return a served ball.
Both teams are allowed to score off the serve.
Only the team with serve can win a set or game.
Service team’s advantage:
The service team has the first play action of five hits on the ball. Then the receiving team has five hits on a ball.
Not every serve is worth a point to either team because in competition, meaningful competition, a team has to earn points.
Islanders Rex Regis
The Islanders are the Rex Regis (kings) and rulers of Rocball’s court of action. The Islanders and Fanians met on Saturday night to determine which team would walk off with the World Title, prize money, and bragging rights as Rocball’s best team of 2009. But, the Fanians forced the Islanders into a situation where no team has even come close to this year. The Fanians forced the Islanders into double overtime before losing the game.
In the first set of the regular game, the Fanians took an early lead and trounced the Islanders with a hard lesson of reality, and drew first blood with a 25 to 14 win. The Islanders came back in the second set and put up a good mixture of backcourt spikes, net kills and dinks to outscore the Fanians in set two 28 to 24
At half time the Fanians had the lead in game points 49 to 42 and started off the third set with serve. In the third set, teams switched the lead numerously, both teams were mixing up their plays and making good defensive saves and hard hits. The Fanians had the momentum in the last series of plays. The Fanians were trailing 19 to 20 when Julius Saito scored a three point goal that gave Fanians the morale boosting energy to finish the Islanders off in the third set at 26 to 20.
The Fanians went into the fourth set leading in game points 75 to 62. The Islanders were at a disadvantage because in order to win the game, they needed to win the fourth set by 14 points. If the Islanders won the fourth set with anything less than 14 points, they could force the Fanians into overtime, because a team cannot juice out, win a Rocball game in a losing set under the quarter/set rules of play. However, the Islanders would still be at a disadvantage because winning the fourth set as the team with the lowest game points after four sets of play, meant they would have to win two overtime sets to win the game.
The Fanians only needed to win the fourth set to win the game and knock the Islanders out of their undefeated winning streak of the bi-weekly Gorilal Games. But, as it happened fate was not with the Fanians. The Islanders were desperate and dangerous. They played their best under pressure and won the fourth set 25 to 16.
In overtime, the Islanders were ruthless. They took the lead and put a series of plays together that shocked the Fanians with a 12 to 1 first O.T. win; in Rocball an O.T. set is won at ten points or a goal, whichever is scored first, when no goal is scored, a team as in regular sets of play, cannot win set or game without the serve.
Growing up playing the game, I have experienced both side out and rally score play. I enjoyed the side out scoring much better because it made the game longer. It was harder to score a point making it more rewarding. Also, it is much easier to come back from a deficit playing side out scoring rather than rallying scoring because in rally score, you can score just by siding out. From a spectator’s perspective, the game is more exciting with the new rally scoring because it keeps the game moving with regards to the score. People who don’t understand the game get bored with side out scoring because it can take 5 or 10 minutes of siding out until someone scores a point. In the past couple years I have really gotten into 2 man beach volleyball. It is a great workout and is much harder than indoor 6 man. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good beach volleyball? I would rather buy one online for a great deal because a lot of these retail stores are a rip off! If anyone else is interested in getting a new ball we could always join together on eswarm.com to get the best deal. The more people we have requesting for the same product on this site, the better chance we have of getting a great deal!