How to Gauge Serious Foul Play

As a referee commented during the State Cup meeting, there are a lot of acronyms out there in the referee world.  "Aw, man, another one?  Geez there are so many to remember!"  

Regardless of how you feel about them they are here to stay and its important to know what they mean.  For many people suck abbreviations make it easier to remember the concepts.  But according to Wiki:

"Acronyms often occur in jargon. Acronyms may have different meanings in different areas of industry, writing, and scholarship. The general reason for this is convenience and succinctness for specialists, although it has led some to obfuscate the meaning either intentionally, to deter those without such domain-specific knowledge, or unintentionally, by creating an initialism that already existed."

So what this means is sometimes people will constantly throw around the acronyms in order to make others feel "out of the loop" and uncomfortable.  Well, if you can interpret this special language then you'll feel confident, not embarrassed!

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SIAPOA 

Speed of play and tackle 

Intent: to send a message or win the ball 

Agressive nature, lunging with the feet 

Position of the legs; pay attention to both the leading and training leg 

Opportunity to play the ball.  Within playing distance?

Atmosphere of the game. 

The elements of SIAPOA will help you when deciding if a tackle is to be a send-off offense.  Remember that its important to study this concept thoroughly but be able to apply it quickly.  Most of us use information like this to build a "threshold" that is easy for us to recognize.  That's why you don't see a moment of hesitation when a top referee sends someone off for a SFP tackle.  They have trained themselves to recognize such tackles quickly and act with courage.