Polo Rules

Just posted this on LOBP, just some thoughts I'd had after chatting to different people. Would be good to hear opinions;

Let me first off start by saying that I had an amazing time at the Euro’s and haven’t been so positive about polo, and been so inspired to play, in quite a while. Seeing so many players with such amazing skill was incredible. Having a lot of good chats with people, I also feel most people are on the same page with where they want to polo to go and the need to make it a more open, fluid game. Secondly all this is from a European stand point, I have no idea what the NAH is doing and haven’t ever been to NA so can’t comment on that (all though from what little I hear it all sounds like amazing stuff).

The most important step to move forward is to first identify what is wrong, so lets start with the final(s). Forgetting the tension, the chanting, the flares and the drums, that final was boring. I don’t doubt the skill of any of the players on the court, but it seems that the most effective way to win has become turtle the goal. The other team must then come in and clear them out, leading to a huge mess, loads of slashing mallets and the ball maybe trickling in. This just looks awful and turns it into some mad sword fight on wheels and not anything that a sane human being would play. We’ve had this for long enough that it seems time that we must step in to open up the game.

Now I don’t hold any holy grail answers to this and I think the most important thing to recognise is the need for experimentation. This can happen at local pick-up and regional tournaments. We need trial and error but we are lucky in that we have lots of opportunity for this to take place. As a starting point, 2 things I would like to see experimented with are:

1) a double goalie crease – I don’t know what size and I don’t know the details on the best way to enforce but I think it’s definitely something we need to trial.
2) No mallet on mallet contact – What other sport can you interfere with someone’s instrument in the same way as polo? It looks messy and often has no real benefit and is just used as a vain attempt to stop someone if they get past you.

Obviously this is just my opinion but I think it’s important to open up debate and share idea’s.

Finally I think we need to radically look at reffing. Reffing in Europe has been consistently poor, if not non-existent, and as time has shown won’t sort itself out on it’s own. It’s a thankless job which involves having people shout at you and probably losing friends in the process. In short, why would you do it? Steps need to be taken to attract people to ref. In an ideal world they would be paid, but often this might not be possible. So how about instead trying to limit the cost of a tournament? Lets say that if you agree to ref for half a day, each day (goal ref, assistant or main) and turn up to every refs meeting, then you get housing and food (and travel paid if there’s the money). If we make it attractive then people will want to do it, we may even reach an ideal situation where more people want to do it than are needed. Then people can apply and organisers can pick the best refs. Refs can build up experience at smaller tournaments making their resume’s better and making them more likely to be selected. Housing all players isn’t feasible anymore, but housing all ref’s might be.

Anyway these were just some thoughts buzzing around in my head and I though it best to put them down here. Would be great to hear peoples comments and see what people think.