What happens in the final minutes before the match starts?
Guideline- Australia
- Hockey Australia
- National championships
- Technical officers
- Under 14 to Country
- 2026
- Officials
From Attachment H (Technical Responsibilities):
- About 15 minutes before the start, the judges check that preparations are on track: umpires, timekeepers and other officials are present, enough balls are available, and any ground or equipment repairs are finished.
- At the agreed time (the warm-up is five minutes) the judges ask teams to leave the warm-up area and return to their benches.
- The umpires call the captains together to toss for choice of ball or direction of play.
- Teams then line up so the technical bench can check starting line ups. The Technical Officer or judges may need to urge team managers to finish within the allowed time.
- One minute before the scheduled start, the Technical Officer asks the ball attendants to take their positions, followed by the two umpires, who go to the centre of the ground and summon the teams by whistle. From then the match is under the umpires' control.
- The Technical Officer makes sure ball persons, umpires and teams go on in an orderly way, ready to start on time.
- During the match, make sure each player entering the field has the correct shirt number and each team is uniformly and neatly attired.
Added 24 Oct 2026