It's a Knockout!

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:59:00 GMT

It’s a Knock-out!

The Problem
There are two major problems that I believe exist in polocrosse at the present. The first is the hurdles faced by our top players trying to bring on young horses, and the second is the persistence of tournament organisers to play A-B deciders. Let’s examine these problems in a little more detail.

Let’s begin with the problems faced by players in trying to train young horses. Many of these players rose to the top on horses which they themselves trained and brought on as youngsters, so it can be argued that most elite players possess the skills to train a horse to the top level. So why don’t these players have a string of horses all capable of excelling on the polocrosse field?

I believe that the way our game is structured at present is the main obstacle stopping the development of these horses. The current system of grading players makes it very difficult for highly graded players to drop ‘down the grades’. Often his high grade will mean that the team he drops back to will end up playing higher than they should, putting increased pressure on the better player and his horse. This is the reason we see many of our better players starting young horses in the A-Grade. Players feel that they are better off having the players around them to offer the support and protection needed to nurture the young horse through. Before the advent of player gradings it was quite common to see A-Grade players playing young horses in the C and D grades.

Those charged with running our sport obviously identified this as a problem and created the multi-horse carnival as the solution. The multi-horse carnival has definitely helped however there is often only two or three per season and this is not enough. We must give those players with the ability to educate polocrosse horses the opportunity to do so. The more horses a player producers, the more surplus he has, the more surplus he has the more horses he sells, the more horses he sells the cheaper they become and so on. As can be seen the flow on effects of this will benefit all of those involved in the sport with better, cheaper horses on the market.

Now to the problem of AB deciders. Despite the introduction of a nation-wide grading system in Australia many tournaments still run a “decider” on Saturday morning. The purpose of this game is to split the A Grade from sides from the B grade sides. In many instances these games are a foregone conclusion, with the final result never really being in doubt. I have trouble recalling the last time there was an upset on Saturday morning of a carnival.

The often lopsided nature of these games can create problems for those teams playing in them. Firstly, if the dominant team decides to help the weaker side by giving them a chance to touch the ball and actually be involved in the game, they often find that their next game is a struggle as their horses are sluggish and the players themselves are not as crisp as they should be.

The alternative is than for the dominant team to go about play as though they were playing an equal. This results in the weaker team barely seeing the ball and the dominant team being branded as being unsporting. As can be seen these deciding matches are really a lose-lose situation for the dominant team, and as such, few players enjoy playing in them.

So what options do we have? Firstly, I acknowledge that due to the number of teams etc these games are often necessary to ensure that players get adequate polocrosse and the draw works as it should. For this reason I believe that AB deciders are here to stay. Ideally I would like to see these games benefit all involved so that the players can walk away having gained something from the match.

The Solution
I believe that the solution to both the problems outlined above could be as simple as giving players the option of playing a younger horse in the grading game. It would not be a multi-horse carnival as such, as the horse that was played in the second game of the weekend must be played for the rest of the weekend.

This would allow the weaker side to be more involved in the game, and allow the dominant team a chance to show some sportsmanship. It would also give the better players a chance to coach and develop the other players.

It also allows players to bring on a young horse without having to drop down the grades, without putting too much pressure on the horse and with the team around them to offer support. By the end of the season the young horse may have played 7 or 8 games for the year without having to play a whole tournament. This would result in an increase in both the quality and quantity of our playing horses and this would undoubtedly filter down through the grades lifting the standard of all.

This is perhaps just one solution and it may not be the best one. Please feel free to comment as your feed back is appreciated. If you think that you have a better solution, please submit it so that it may plant the seed of thought in others.

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It's a Knockout!