Soccerboy, having witnessed the challenge on the Irmo player by the "schmuck" as you put it; I feel I have to disagree with you. Firstly the Irmo player was shielding the man not the ball, he was obstructing the player from getting to the ball therefore for the Northwestern player to get the ball he would have to slide around the Irmo player with such force that it would take him to the ball (because he was being shielded so far away from the ball by the Irmo player). Secondly When the Irmo player kicked out at the Northwestern player, I believe by the laws of the game he should have been sent off. I don’t know if he connected with the Northwestern player, but if you remember the Manchester United Vs Arsenal game at Old Trafford when Patrick Viera got sent of for 'intent' to kick Rudd Van Nistelrooy. This is of course down to the referee’s discretion and thankfully common sense prevailed and neither was sent off. It appears to me from your post ("he was darned lucky to not get a red card when it was probably appropriate to get it") that you want one law for the Irmo players and one law for everybody else. Astonishing as it may seem, no team has the right to have decisions go there way because of who they are. As for your point about Irmo playing a "controlled aggression" type of game. They do challenge for the ball hard, and they really do attack players. They don't intentionally try to hurt people". I agree with you. Coach Savitz has a fantastic team and they played with a lot of panache and class on that night in the final, exactly the same class and panache that Northwestern did. I don’t know if I can 'deal' with the fact that Irmo will be vying for the state championship as I have already stated elsewhere they are the team to beat this year (along with South Aiken), I think in response to your plea for people to not ‘complain’ then maybe you should refrain from calling opposition players ‘schmucks’.
