Polo Rules

On the NAH rules? Ultimately, yes.

But feedback is welcomed from everyone. Please email rules@nahardcourt.com if you do have any.

This is key - it's desperate and you've already been beaten. Deal with it.

It would be a bit of a faff to have every polo court fitted with sunglasses-lowering facilities, though.

get a uk association. Get a euro one too. If its official it adds weight.

I think part of the problem with the last wave of UKHBPA enthusiasm was that I didn't see much comms.

As a player a.k.a stakeholder, I didn't have much to discuss with my local rep because I wasn't aware of the agenda of future meetings and I didn't know what happened at the last meeting.

Are there any accessible records from past meetings, or are they in some unpublicised archive?

I think fin has been working on starting the UK association. Just needs some people to get it rolling.

Thanks John, pretty much make sense. We have been totally lame in not getting organised

I don't quite agree with the crease v interference explanation, especially as creases had already been tried (and most feedback was positive). When we've done it (admittedly at small tournaments) it hasn't been difficult to write a rule that everyone could understand pretty much instantaneously and has been universally followed so that refs didn't even need to call any penalties.

Contrast that with interference which seemed to come from nowhere and is difficult to understand whether written or demonstrated and in practice it sounds like it needs an extra ref to keep track of...

I don't disagree with you, I don't really like the interference rule, as it's written and I wasn't part of the conversation on that topic, so I don't know the exact reasons why it was preferred to a crease.

I don't disagree with you, I don't really like the interference rule, as it's written and I wasn't part of the conversation on that topic, so I don't know the exact reasons why it was preferred to a crease.

Man, you so negative.

The interference rule actively empowers a turtling tactic (as written) as you can no longer 'breakup the D'.

I think it's unwise to compare a crease rule to an interference rule, they target completely different aspects of the game.

Infinity goals (ultimate polo) for the win.

^This.

And this:

Hacking is horrible; hooking isn't all that good. Make life easier on refs and just ban mallet-on-mallet? I really appreciate all of the work going into the rules, but I think there should be a focus on simplicity and ease-of-application especially considering how few dedicated refs there are and how tournaments are run (many games get reffed by people who don't want to).

Despite trying moderately hard to understand it, the new blocking rule confuses the hell out of me.

What's turtling?

What's turtling?

It's when you're busting to go but your flatmate won't get out of the bathroom...

isn't that crowning?

I'm 90% sure turtling is something to so with teenage ninja's.

I think the NAH rules are good and the interference rule is especially good, reffs just need more practice getting used to it and I'm looking forward to seeing it in action at the UK champs.
The interference rule is easy to understand, when attacking you can block but don't hit anyone! It simply takes out the malicious blocking where attacking players were trying to make defending players dab, which is boring to watch, zzz

but getting back to hooking and pinning mallets whats the reason for having it? We should be making rules to encourage the game we want to play. NAH has taken one big step forward for us in taking out off the ball hits and aggressive blocks (the interference rule). They have also taken out checks from behind, toppling and intentional bike on bike causing a player to dab. I think we need to take this one step further; coincidental mallet on martlet contact when playing the ball should be allowed, obviously, ; but we should remove all other mallet on mallet contact, no hooking no hacking no pinning mallets.

then all that will be left is passing the ball and making sweet plays!

^ My hero...

Let's assume there's incidental contact allowed only and this happens:
Player A winds up for a shot, Player B has chased them and places their mallet in the path of their swing. As Player A goes to shoot there is mallet on mallet contact. Is it:
1) no foul, incidental
2) foul for Player A, they struck the other mallet
3) fouls for Player B, they caused mallet on mallet by putting their mallet in the path of a swinging mallet.

I know this is all up for debate so I'm just asking for opinions. I think it would be 1) no foul, but it could get complicated trying to see if it was a hook or not (what happens to the post contact could turn in to a hook/tussle to break the mallets free)

…then all that will be left is passing the ball and making sweet plays!

Interesting question.

Mallet-on-mallet itself isn't illegal, just hacking.

While technically it might be a hack from the shooter, I think the intention would be to the normal shot to happen.

I wouldn't call anything, as long as it was just a normal shot

It's a grey area.

It was more a question for a potential no mallet contact ruleset

Currently I'd expect it not to be a foul (even if it could be argued the shooting player striked the other mallet)

+1

Edit: not that I'm saying I can do sweet passes or plays. But I like the idea better.

With the interference, I get that you can't fuck defenders out of the game, are you also not allowed to just park up in their way? Is that an obstruction? Blocking is cool but only if you're both moving in a screening kind of way? Is that right?

#onceahookeralwaysahooker

The idea is no body-on-body off the ball (unless it's mutual), the reality is that bike polo players make contact with each other all the time (on and off the ball) and that it's impossible for a ref to see off the ball action.

The very short form of the interference rule is that you can't make contact of the ball, unless another player is actively blocking you (by moving, stationary doesn't count). At that point you can then initiate contact with them off the ball.

That applies to defence and offence.

Does that mean if three people sit stationary in the crease there's nothing you can do to move them?

Does that mean if three people sit stationary in the crease there's nothing you can do to move them?

Yes, but if they do that, they can't score either. Draws all round