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| LADIES POLO UPDATE – MESSAGE FROM CATHERINE HARTLEY- OCTOBER 2009 |
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We have had a good year in ladies polo and Congratulations to everyone whose handicaps went up, particularly to our new 1’s, Candice, Beth and Amy. Well done and keep it up!
In the first of our internationals, our SA girls did exceptionally well against Zambia. Well done to Amy, Beth, Erin and Tanya for a hard fought and well-won series against the host team.
Our SA girls also played extremely well against the visiting BA ladies from Argentina and I think that it is a great reflection on our local handicaps that we generally appear to be much
stronger off our handicaps than they were. (Argentina only starts at 0-goals, so that may partly be the reason).
However the girls who travelled to Nigeria to play in the Charity Shield also fared very well and our handicaps compared to the American ladies handicaps, were again generally much stronger.
Inter-Provincials was an interesting one this year, with us having to call on two 2-goal men to bulk up the two invitational teams to play against the 4-goal Highveld team and the 2-goal Natal team. It was a great tournament and both Natal and Highveld played very well but I think that ultimately the men’s stronger and longer hitting and crafty experience is what enabled the Invitational teams to get to the finals.
Inter-Provincials is an item on the agenda next week, and if the tournament remains the same, I feel that we need to ensure that we maintain our ladies section but we need to look at it differently.
Apart from the Karkloof Classic, it is one of the few tournaments that pits the stronger girls in the country against each other and it is an important benchmark, as well as something to work towards. After discussions with a few people, my thoughts are to suggest the following:
Highveld and Natal (who have the balance of the stronger players) should each submit a “squad” of 5/6 players, depending on available players in the Free-State, they must submit a team and if necessary, players from the Cape and EG should be called on. The teams should then be mixed up to make the strongest and most even teams to play against each other.
It is not ideal but with the current huge differences in provincial handicaps, it makes for very uneven and very dull polo. If we mix it up like this, we could have 4 x 1-goal teams and an exciting tournament-.
Please send me your ideas or comments on this.
Our ladies teams that played in the BMW curtain-raisers both played well but both lost by 1 & 2 goals to the all men’s teams, so we still have a lot to work towards!
Finally, we will be working towards an international during 2010 but sponsorship will determine how big an event it is. If we cannot budget towards a big event, then we can still do something similar to the BA ladies tour. We hope that we will also be able to host a Cape-based event in the early part of next year.
We also need to keep encouraging new and younger players to play and keep improving, so please assist wherever possible.
I look forward to hearing from you and I will be in touch again after the meeting next weekend.
Best regards
Catherine Hartley
LADIES POLO REPRESENTATIVE
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