I watched a bit of the High goal last week and came away somewhat perplexed. What should on paper have been a very exciting pair of semi-finals and final actually left me somewhat cold and disinterested. Not having been in the scene this year having given up coaching High goal teams for Lent I had only watched a few chukkas of Dubai against someone not very good until then so I was not really in the loop previously. Since my experience I have talked to a general cross section of patrons professionals and professional watchers and they seem to bear out my impression and what is more say that it has ALL been like that. I have therefore pondered as to why and concluded as follows:

Trailing player fouls

There has always been a concerted effort to block and baulk higher handicapped players from getting to plays by lower handicapped ones but it seems to me more prevalent more determined and apparently unseen. The only time I have  seen it blown this year is TWICE in one game of 8 goal I was coaching ( against the opposition obviously!). Is it that the umpires are too busy counting the number of times the baulked players team mate is tapping the ball, have they suddenly lost their peripheral vision or is it in some way being condoned with fair play being sacrificed on the altar of “old school open polo”? I will have to study this phenomenon further and return to it at a later date with my final opinion.

Chicken and Egg

Did the player in front block the tapper thereby forcing him to tap or did the tapper just choose to check up and display his close control skills to the tedium of all concerned? This is the million PLUS dollar question. To my casual viewer eye I would say that the balance has shifted to somewhere between 5 and 10 to 1 against the player with the ball. By this i mean that in ALL polo I watch between 5 and 10 times more whistle is blown against the man with the ball as opposed to the man waiting in front. Again my research has hardly begun so I cannot tell you exactly the ratio in High Goal but I will commission a study and come up with an answer in due course. However the point I wish to make is that the man blocking being the instigator is more guilty than the man who checks up with the ball as he is slowing play down and thereby making polo unattractive. This action should therefore be treated MORE severely as an infringement. I can categorically state that this not being done at any level including the High Goal because we should have many more fouls for blocking than whistles for walking in the games that I watch because there is far more of it. It almost seems that the players with the ball have run up the white flag and expect it to happen and now play accordingly. Well they would have to would they not but is it right and/or conducive to a good spectacle? In my opinion it is not an  can actually lead to a brutalisation of the sport which is in itself unsightly, as witnessed by large passages of play seen at Guards last week.

Et tu BRUTO!

Bruto is a Spanish word for thug. I am now going to hark back to the old days and say that when I was young you practised and played to hone your skills and go UP in handicap. Nowadays considerable numbers of the talented section of successive generations of polo players are being taught that it is good to stay on the same or even go down in handicap. What is more they are actively DISCOURAGED from showing off their skills or even using them at all. “The ball is not your friend” is a phrase that even I  to my eternal shame have used when drilling some young player as to his duties. Careers have been blighted and stunted on many occasions over the last dozen or so years and whilst blame lies at many doors I cannot see the current manner in which High Goal polo is being conducted do anything but make the situation worse. It then washes down the line to all other levels of the game and the style and tempo at other levels is consistent in my opinion with that of the High Goal.

Thanks for the memories

I am a conservative and love old-school, four man polo and encourage it as much as I can. The freaky super-skills of the modern High Goal players have however rendered it obsolete. I have stated before in this column that despite my views I delight and am in awe of their talent. I am now however watching something that satisfies neither of my viewing criteria. You cannot return to the past and you can only slow down evolution. We are at the moment going through an ugly stage of polo which will end soon hopefully. Even Juanma has been looking a bit ordinary at times and he is a genius who at the same time tries to let his team-mates play and develope! I hope that we can fix the problem before we squeeze the life out of his talent. In the meantime I have my video collection as consolation. Thanks for the memories.