I know this question has been sort of asked before, kind of. At a competition we attended on saturday, the large balls were definitely not inflated fully. They had not even achieved spherical shapes yet because they were so underinflated. In a previous Q&A, you stated that teams should contact the head referee at the tournament, and they would rectify the situation.
Well, the state coordinator was at this tournament, so I talked to her about the underinflation of the large balls. I was told that they were allowed to be underinflated, so long as they could still not travel under the barrier “because that is the true intent of the sizing requirements.” She said that they were fine. As it happened, I watched large balls get pushed under the barrier several times during the event and I definitely noticed that the smaller sized large balls were behaving much differently in play than the full sized ones we had been practicing with.
So, my question is, given your initial reaction that the event organizers would rectify any issues, what should we do in the case that the organizers refuse to inflate the large balls to spec?
If the event organizers are unwilling to follow the rules, you should consider contacting the local RECF representative for the region. In general we expect the Large Balls to be inflated to spec, and to never pass underneath the Barrier.