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Posted for Robyn Gibbard, by Vish
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Date Posted: 12:30:42 01/24/02 Thu
My reaction to Proposed National League:
Firstly, I think it's important to recognise that it's great there is even a
proposal to get something structured up and running, so well done to those
involved.
One of the biggest points of debate seems to be the frequency of
competition. What NZCPA are in effect asking the players to do, as I see
it, is to commit to playing Canoe Polo as they would if they were playing
Club Rugby, or Netball for example. They would need to commit to regular
training, and regular competition (including travel), on almost a week to
week basis. Traditionally for a lot of Polo players, they have only played
polo if they weren't doing something else, and they could get a team
together. If it all worked out it was then a case of all piling into a car,
and going off to play polo. I guess the question of whether or not the
majority of Polo Players in NZ are ready to commit to the sport in a big way
will soon be answered by the amount of teams that enter. For me, my
participation would depend on how much it was going to cost, plainly and
simply. I would have thought that due to the large distances that would
have to be travelled, the existing format of weekend competitions would be
the way to go, with the inbetween times used for each region to build up
their local leagues, and keep the fringe players involved.
My biggest reaction is to the length of games being 40 mins. From what I
read in the NZCPA's newsletter, the National League is being implemented to
develop our players to the stage that they qualify to compete at the World
Games 2005. My past experience at the World Champ's in '94 and '96 left me
with this opinion: One of the reasons NZ Women can't compete equally
against the 3 or 4 top nations in the world is that our game plan and style
is too slow. Our offence, and therefore our defence (becasue thats what we
defend against) is too played too statically, without enough dynamic play,
and we also play the game "too carefully". Huge leaps of progress have been
made since '94 which is great, but I feel that playing 40min games can only
halt that progess and encourage players to once again think slowly and
carefully on the court. There is no question that any of us would go out on
the court to play a 40min game with a completely different mindset than to
how we would approach a 20min game. That mental conditioning is something
that NZ Teams have traditionally struggled with also. I've read many of the
different opinions being offered on this subject comparing Polo to many
different sports, but to me the fact remains: Polo is Polo, it is a fast,
dynamic game that is played at a very fast pace for 20mins (on the World
Stage). To change our top teams to playing games of 40mins long, will not
improve our chances of developing our national teams to the stage of making
the grade for the World Games, if anything it will be detrimental to their
development and hinder their chances.
Robyn.
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