In a recent match, red alliance descored two blue alliance cones and a violation was called. The match ended Red 45 to Blue 40. The refs gave blue 4 points for the 2 descored cones and said since red would still be ahead by a point that the violation was not “match affecting” My question is in the rules should “match affecting” be read narrowly as “match determining?” In this match, no consideration was given to whether the 2 descored cones would have possibly allowed for a high cone stack in zone bonus or whether the violation caused a delay such that the blue alliance might have scored even one more cone and won the match. Nor was consideration given that the violation may affect match strategy in a close match like this. If “match affecting” should be read as literally only “match determining” by the strict awarding of points without regard to possible other affects, is this a little too narrow? Also, if “match affecting” should be interpreted as “match determining,” should we change the words in the rules?
Match Affecting is defined as the following:
Please see the following Q&A posts, found in the Q&A summary document, for some more reflection on what factors referees will take into account when determining if an action changed the outcome of the Match or not:
https://vexforum.com/t/answered-sg10-passive-vs-active-defense/43994/1
https://vexforum.com/t/answered-sg5-and-g12/44239/1
https://vexforum.com/t/alien-vs-predator-august-22-2009-downingtown-pa/15931/1
https://vexforum.com/t/answered-pin-or-trap-question/45326/1