Tip 34: Field Positioning-Anticipation - The polo field is an incredibly large area of play in the world of sport. An outdoor field is ten acres, which defines itself as nine football fields. That is more than an acre for each mounted person in the game. It is easy to see how we can do a lot of running without a great deal of progress. It is only because the goals are literally as wide as the side of some barns with no height limitations that we can boast the scores that we have. Picture a soccer goal, a hockey goal, or a basketball net.
There is many a day when I am certain we all would rather play by the rules of football and just try to get the ball over an end line.
In the arena, the playing area is greatly reduced, but there is a fifteen-foot height limitation and a narrower goal to shoot at.
Outdoors calls for more utilization of positions as the arena allows for complete rotation amongst the three players. The expanse of outdoors demands that we be a little more aware of how we use our horse through the chukker. In low goal and very important higher goal events, a horse may be seeing a couple of chukkers of action. But generally, a full chukker is more than enough duty for a horse in a given day. Some players will even split that chukker up in to two half chukkers. Outdoors calls for team play and supporting each other in moving the ball up and down the field. Running the entire field on every play is not a very healthy or productive use of your horse.
That is where play anticipation becomes such a valuable tool. Play anticipation could be best defined by play recognition and then making the necessary adjustments in your present course to maximize the efforts of your movement. The great players are looking ahead of the present play and are more focused on the field layout of opponents and teammates and assessing various options depending on how the present play is developing.
There are many additional factors than just player positioning. You have to consider player abilities, quality of horses, wind, playing surface, conditioning of horses, and time remaining. The great minds of polo are assimilating all of this information on the run, literally.
A partial list of some things you can you do as an amateur to be more aware of play development and how to better anticipate:
1) Identify who is hitting-their ability to hit
2) Know the positioning of your closest opponent to you
3) Know the positioning of teammates & opponents
4) Keep one eye on the developing play and the current line of the ball and your other eye on the field layout all of the time.
5) Remember defense is usually to the boards and they have to come to the center on offense
6) Try to position yourself on their stick side or offside when coming from behind of your opponent or when waiting up ahead for them to get to you.
7) Avoid meeting the play unless you are certain to get to the ball first, you are correctly meeting one opponent, and you have back-up
8) Try to guess where each shot is going to be hit by others
9) Move into position for a pass before the ball is actually hit
10) Get to your opponent quickly so that you are marked up before you come to the ball or before the ball comes to you.
11) Sometimes it is best to recognize a lost play and try to get to the area of the next play.
12) Communicate with your teammates
13) On knock-ins and throw-ins get into position quickly
14) When you are following the play, get in line behind the players on the ball. Too many players ride off to the side of the play.
15) Try to position yourself in a realistic position to accept a pass from a teammate based on their hitting ability.
16) A call for a pass is only an option depending on the lay of the ball and your comfort with the shot.
A great drill is to practice identifying where specific players are in relation to the ball during play. This will begin to develop your ability to make a better decision as to where to hit the ball to your team’s best advantage. There is a lot to this sport. One of my favorite quotations was from teaching great Rege Ludwig. Rege was “comparing polo to a kaleidoscope”. Every small twist of the tube is a complete change of the design. So it is with polo. One stroke of the ball can and usually is a complete change of all the variables that were in place only a moment ago.
So anticipation in its simplest definition is awareness. It is simply looking at the field and being familiar with the resulting possibilities from that present layout. I used the words simplest and simply, but there is certainly nothing simple about our wonderful game, except for the fact that it is simply a blast to play. Happy Polo !!!