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The 'ol mallet under the front wheel trick

Okay, so- obviously you can't intentionally put your mallet under someone else's wheel and take them down. My understanding is also that you can't carelessly or recklessly let your mallet down someone- NAH rules say something like 'regardless of intent'. How far does this go? Like, I'm going for the ball, mallet winds up near your wheel you go down. I tap out? I'm sitting in net minding my own business, you ride your wheel onto my mallet and go down- I tap out?

Is there any line to be drawn / argument to be made? Or is it a simple, absolute liability, no exceptions kind of rule: if my mallet is under your wheel and you go down, i have to tap out?

Yes. If opposing player dabs/falls because your mallet went under their wheel, you tap out. Good incentive to keep your mallet in control. I've even seen the polite move of waiting until the other player taps.

danfinger wrote:


That sould be the only way to do it, otherwise the 'offender' gets a quick tap in and is already back in the game before the 'victim' has scraped themselves up off the court... or got their feet back on the pedals.

This is something I've put a bit of thought into. I think that if your mallet is ON the ball i.e. currently or very shortly before/after making contact with it then you don't have to tap out if they go down. Like if I'm pushing the ball up the court in front of myself and someone comes from my right (I'm righty) into my mallet and the ball, then I don't have to tap. But if your mallet ISN'T on the ball AND you're making a play on the ball, then you should have to tap. For example, if you're reaching for a ball across the front wheel of the person who has possession of it. But if you're not making a play on the ball (and being aware of where you mallet is), then you aren't responsible if someone happens to run over your mallet. If you're in goal or tripodding elsewhere, then a mallet under the front wheel only happens if someone else moves into your stationary mallet and that makes it their fault.

But I think the more important question is one about right of way. For example: if I put my mallet in a certain place, in what situations are you allowed to ride through it? I've used my front wheel to knock out a goalie's mallet before and some people think it shouldn't be legal because it's intentional bike on mallet contact. Should it be legal to ride your wheel through a tripodded mallet? If so, then the mallet-under-the-front-wheel question becomes harder to address. We'd have to avoid people tripodding with their mallet intentionally under the front of a stationary player's wheel. They'd defend themselves by saying "I've tripodded so you can't ride through me". That would be bush league and boring. So I think you should be able to ride through a tripod. But if you ride your wheel onto someone's mallet, that is to say, YOU intiate the contact, then it's your fault and they don't have to tap in. But if the person with the mallet intiates contact AND doesn't have the ball, then they do have to tap in. The question for the ref is then to determine who reasonably had possession of the ball and who intiated contact. Those things are pretty easy to see, I hope.

lots of 'ifs' 'ands' and contingents. If I ref a game none of that matters as it is not codified in the rules. Get the rules committee to publish those tweaks so the reffing can be consistent.

Until then, go tap out.

Pretty hard to justify forcing a goalie to tap out when the offender when down.

For me, tough part is ruling in open court situations. I'm much more of a mind to say your mallet, his wheel: you tap (no matter what he was doing). The burden should be on players to play clean.

I just don't want to encourage people to ride their front wheels into stationary mallets as a way to take a goalie out (by making him tap).

I don't really see people actually riding into mallets to take goalies or anyone else out. You'd have to take yourself out as well- and it's just a little to sneaky and dirty for that to actually happen in any kind of meaningful way. I think it's a pretty reasonable rule to say that in open court , if mallet under wheel then tap- end of story and no argument. I also like the idea that if a goalie does it (which I don't think i've ever seen) we could start asking the mallet under wheel vs. wheel over mallet question.


Who's worried about a goalie that relies on tripodding to stay upright? Lift that mallet and do something useful with it!

Using a wheel to bump a goalies' mallet sounds friendly to me. Maybe even a little gay. Which it's totally fine to be a little gay, no problems there. Play on.

polojoel wrote:


reppin' SF

I agree that you can try to ride through a mallet, but if you dab yourself, the goalie shouldn't have to just because his mallet was involved.

save this trick for someone who's being a dick. and yes you should tap in.

Pete raises some good points. There are plenty of situations where I've gone down because of somebody else's mallet under my wheel, but I've told them not to tap. I'm not the only one I'm sure, but I like to use my front wheel to play the ball and sometimes I put myself in situations where it's ambiguous who is at fault for my wheel getting swiped. If I lift my wheel onto or swing it into a mallet that ends up dumping me off my bike, that's nobody's fault but my own.

how we play is that the one who gets taken down by a mallet, they dont have to tap. neither does the offender. makes the game go faster. but that is just LA pickup.

in Ladies Army we had to tap back in when the victim taped in. so no unfair advantages.

give blood. play polo.

Tapping makes sense if there is no ref, like pickup or chill tourneys. But if there's a ref, fuck the honor system. Ref should be enforcing the rules.

I agree that there are situations where the one whose mallet got run over didn't do anything wrong.

Refs didn't ref anything in 95% of any game in any tourney... Even when the foul is simple as this one(if the ball handler loose the ball because of that, whistle, give the ball back, game on).
This kind of foul is one of the most easy to auto ref, and Im always gonna think that a player who continue to play after making a move like that ( in situation where is guilty by trying too hard ti get the ball in from of a wheel) is an asshole. The day we find more than 2 or 3 refs around the world who can make the job looks so far. Most of the time, using the silence of ref as a reference to say that a dick move was allowed is just hypocrisy.

Agree with your second point.

kev wrote:


I don't like this attitude at all. If a player does something that they know is wrong that the ref didn't see for whatever reason, they should still hold themself responsible for it.

'Should' is a dead end. Some people make dick moves and blame the person they fouled. To them, the world should be an easier place to score goals, to hell with anything else.

I think Kev is saying a ref should clarify the situation with a whistle. No debate about motives or intention.

Noting of course getting enough refs paying close enough coordinated attention is a big challenge.

"'Should' is a dead end."

I think Kev is saying a ref
should clarify the situation with a whistle
should clarify the situation with a whistle
should clarify the situation with a whistle.
too many shoulds.

too many shit bags dicking up the game.

If you know you've jacked someone and then you compound it by taking advantage of the situation to score? Well, it would be good if the ref stepped in to keep that from happening. It would be better if you just broke off playing and went and tapped so the ref could just let the game keep moving.

it's already established that you have superior moral principles, remember?

But since i wrote this my expectation of having good refs at tourneys has gone down. Perhaps our lacklustre moral principles are still better than most refs. But this will change.

A double tap for the offender and single tap for the offended, repeated offences leading to 20-30 second sin bin.

I was chasing down a fast brake and reaching out to take the shot when a defender ran over my mallet. He then said, "That was my fault" and waved off me tapping. He was right. I was clearly going to take the shot. He was on the outside of me and, how we were, he didn't really have a good play other then getting his wheel up to where I was shooting. Running over my mallet was almost his plan or at least a risk he was willing to take to stop the shot. I didn't get the shot off but didn't have to tap and he dabbed but stopped the shot.

I like this approach. It's like, there's a rebuttable presumption that when you mallet someone you have to tap. If they tell you not to, then you don't. If someone sticks their wheel over your mallet, goes down and says nothing- you go tap knowing that you are a better person than they are.

In reference to the "should is a dead end" argument; I really think that players being dicks is an overstated problem and i like this sport a lot more with minimal reffing and general rules like play them as hard as they play you and don't be a dick. For every dick i've ever played against, i've played against dozens of players who aren't dicks. Most players are going to play respectfully, and are going to tap out when they ought to tap out. Not having ref's who call anything reinforces this sense of obligation to do the right thing/follow the rules/not be a dick. I think we should try to cultivate this in our sport.


But the question then is what's the difference between being a dick and disobeying the rules. Can you operate within the rules and still be considered a dick? If so, what's the point of the rules? And speaking of rules, this thread, especially Stevenso's scenario, brings up an interesting question about wheel on mallet contact. I have three wheel-to-mallet scenarios to consider.

1) I've roll up to a tri-podded goalie (or even someone rolling around on the court!) and swung my wheel to knock their mallet, is that legal?

2)What if you're riding with your mallet on the ground away from the ball and someone tries to ride you off and your mallet goes under their wheel? Should you be responsible because you didn't get your mallet out of the way? Sometimes people ride around with their mallet placed carelessly, that's for sure. But it's hard to differentiate between negligence that merits penalization and negligence that doesn't.

3) And lastly, I've seen people (unintentionally) roll their front wheel onto an opponent's tripodded mallet and cause them both to dab. Should that be legal.. probably not.

Yet all three of these scenarios are kinds of wheel to mallet contact, so where do you draw the line? It's definitely a complex issue even if you aren't being a dick.

You can be within the rules and still be a dick, but if you are playing outside the rules (ie, foot touches the ground and you don't tap out) then you are defiantly being a dick. The if the rules are clear, then it should be really easy to not be a dick. If it's easy to not be a dick, then it's easier to get angry at people for being dicks.

I just think that having rules strictly enforced by the ref leads to people pushing the boundaries of the rules and ultimately can lead to dangerous play. Maybe this is naive, but not having a ref forces players to take responsibility for their actions, play within their comfort level, and not do stupid things that are going to lead to injuries.

1) I think this is legit.
2) Most of the time, i think you should dab for that. You have to be responsible for where your mallet is. Frankly, I don't actually see this scenario happening in real life. If you are the person who rode into in mallet that was already on the ground, and you feel like it was your fault, maybe that would be a good time to say something and tell the other player not to dab.
3) Probably not. But what are you gonna do? Both players dab. Get over it.


It can get pretty bad on the home court with no ref. It seems lots of clubs struggle to deal with one or two very aggressive players. A ref might help, but there's no ref in pickup.

Tourneys need good refs. It's a hard and mostly thankless job. More, better tourney refs mean more people come away from a tourney knowing what's what.

Double post. What does it mean?


I disagree entirely joel, it doesn't matter if the ref calls a game at all, at major tournaments no one can really hear them anyway and players listen more to the crowd which is very loud and has majority volume consensus. This should be our focus for major tournaments, more community based reffing based on the loudest getting their way. It will be like the roman coliseums of old, and our sport can get more bloody as well, fights to the death and the like.


Does that mean you're willing to try my new blindfolded joust idea?