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Antony Fanshawe
As the England team coach at the FIP IX Polo World Cup, Antony Fanshawe recounts his first-hand experience of the excitement and disappointment of international events
illustration PHIL DISLEY
Being asked to coach England for the FIP IX Polo World Cup in San Luis, Argentina, was both a surprise and an honour. It is not very often that one gets a chance to inflict one’s polo theories on others as there always seem to be more ‘experts’ around a polo field than one can ever get on it. Ha! At last!
The team of Nick Britten-Long, Ed Hitchman, Max Charlton and Jack Richardson had done extremely well to qualify from the European zone played in Italy in September. Two teams qualified from the zone and it was a very unlucky French team that got left behind by narrowly losing to both Italy and England. The French players must have been miffed to be beaten by an Italian team featuring three Argentines.
Huge thanks to Alan Kent for coaching in Italy and to Richard Britten-Long for helping with some of the huge costs involved in taking the team to Italy. Also to the team themselves as at the end of a very long season there are many good reasons for not sending one’s tired horses to Italy.
The 10 teams to qualify were Argentina, Brazil, Chile (holders), Pakistan, India, Mexico, USA, Italy, Australia and England. These were separated into two leagues playing over two weeks for a spot in the final. We drew, in order of play, Chile, USA, Australia and Brazil.
Strings of horses were drawn from a pool of 300 horses and, all in all, our string was not too bad. How do you mount 10 teams to play a minimum of four games each? Huge thanks to Miguel Amieva and Juan Ruiz Guiniazo and team, who were tasked with getting this huge string ready and also for giving all the teams an idea of which horse did what. As teams are only allowed one stick and ball session and one practice before the tournament starts, this was crucial information. To mount one player from 10 horses in this time frame would be testing, to mount four can be a nightmare. How do you divide up a string of horses between four players and not lose the team spirit? It is easier to ‘borrow’ a player’s girlfriend than his best pony! Arguments and resentment thrive: ‘who’s going to play that mare?’ etc. Not great for team spirit at all, but this is the coach’s most important job: to ‘umpire’ what the players do when they are sorting out the individual strings (with seven horses each). Nick volunteered to play the worst seven horses, which was crucial, as the better players must have the better horses. I
did not envy Nick’s challenge, but he acted without complaint.
One big advantage both Italy and England had was that we had played to qualify the week before and so already knew how we would ideally line up. Now we had to work out which horses would best suit each position and player. We played with Nick as a combination of number 1 and blocking on our set plays and on their set plays as a 4 and blocking whoever he was told to. There are no 10-goalers on great horses so man marking is possible. We thought that Ed (captain) had better have easy horses, to play fairly deep and remind everyone that he might lack speed for any long plays. Also that the team should try to dive on the ball, leaving it to Ed to sweep up, and that he should cut out any attacks early especially if we forced the other team into playing backhands. He should not get too deep as this would enable the other team to bring the ball up behind him. A very talented horseman, who rarely made mistakes, Ed had a great tournament.
We also agreed that Max should have as much power as possible and play at 3 – not as a playmaker but more as an old-style number 2 breaking up any rhythm the other team found and making goals. He was comparatively well mounted and made a huge contribution throughout the tournament. It is truly a blessing to coach talented players who have to be told to slow down! But it was also important not to use up horses for any other reason than winning the ball and then using it well.
Jack would have a combination of good and bad horses. His ‘job’ on the field would be to keep it simple on the worst horses and then bring the skills when he had a bit of horse under him. A difficult job especially for young players, who see the ball big often, but on the wrong horse end up losing a play they can do with their eyes shut on their own horses. Jack played great with growing maturity, pulled out some wonderful goals and crucially did not sulk when Max and Ed got the better strings.
I think the practice match did leave us a little nervous of the team’s abilities as we only cruised the horses, but in reality this level of polo is extremely even throughout the poloplaying world. Any team at this competition could have beaten any other team on their day. So it is a shame that FIP does not take the issue of handicapping seriously enough
to organise an on-site handicap committee, as this is where the difference is really made between countries. It is fundamental to handicapped tournaments that someone polices the handicaps. At San Luis there was no one. Both teams that eventually played the final could easily be, and probably are by now, over 20 goals.
To be fair there is little incentive among young Argentine players to stay down as all of their important tournaments require players to have at least six goals. The handicapping of players up to six goals happens at club level, which does create problems at low-level tournaments as players may have three or four goals abroad and still be a 0 in Argentina. Also new players may have years of farm practices/club practices etc under their belt and have no handicap at all until they start tournament polo, where after one season they could go from 0 to 3 or 4. Perhaps the biggest problem is cultural. In USA, England, France etc we play 100 per cent handicap tournament polo. Our greatest tournaments are not played open, which in turn encourages players to stay down. The best under-handicapped players get the teams but it is very difficult to beat the handicappers. The sad part is also that Argentine young players aspire to play the Open in Palermo, which requires a high handicap. English young players want to play any polo they can, however good.
At a pre-tournament meeting a suggestion of playing five chukkas instead of six was laughed out of the room by the committee, but judging by the amount of crashes in the coming games it would probably have been wiser and safer. If polo is to continue, horse welfare is paramount!
So to our opening game against World Champions, Chile. We decided to play as many bad horses early as we could especially at the front of the team. Any player on a bad horse has to keep it very simple and as the game develops and the horses get better, so should the team. It is very important to remember the lack of superstar players and that if you play with good discipline, and a big dollop of willpower, no team is too good to beat. Many mistakes are made yet the most important rule is not to let one mistake multiply into three. How many times are goals scored while we argue about who did what wrong and why? A goal against is just that, one goal, so get to the next throw in and concentrate on what you have to do to win it.
The players had already organised themselves a selection of set plays from hit- ins and 5b and these worked well throughout the tournament. Using Nick as a battering ram often created a lot of space for either Jack or Max. The only time these set plays go
wrong is when the players have not agreed exactly what they are going to do, so as the play develops and does not go to ‘plan’, the other team gain advantage. They work best when whoever hits in keeps it simple and the runners make the space. At this level, on unknown horses, it is not easy to develop complicated plays out of defence. Putting the ball beyond opposition players and creating a horse race is extremely difficult to defend. While playing backhands at the gallop, it is not easy to pick a pass especially if your teammates are out of control!
We won 13-7. A flattering score as Chile missed several good chances but also looked like a team who had not played together much. Even so they had to be beaten and Max put in a shift that made me think that the English handicappers had been up to some tricks! A wonderful result which highlighted quite a few truths that we would have to take on board. Most importantly, do not dally on the ball. Hit it and chase it!
Next, the USA, who had been beaten by Brazil in their opener. Based around the experienced pro, John Gobin – lowered from six goals last year – this team was always going to be difficult to beat. We played a little too loose and compounded this with too much indiscipline on the ball whilst USA fought hard. It was a very close match, with neither side able to get out in front by more than a goal. We entered the last chukka at 5-5. It was not an easy game on the eye but scoring the sixth and then getting a 40-yard penalty with two minutes to go should have been enough. Max had the dubious pleasure of taking this on a horse snaking and changing leads. Bang! Straight over the top for 7-5.
I was worried by Nick’s evident lack of horse power, producing a player who was trying too hard to get, unsuccessfully, too many plays. This in turn caused a loss of confidence. Our playing habits learnt on our own horses back home are not what we need in these games. To get more from him required him to do less. He was only to pick plays where he was sure he would win, and for the rest of the time cruise around causing trouble. Most importantly he had to relax a little so as to concentrate better. The adrenalin will come as you disappear off the end of the field on a runaway!
Next we faced Australia, who had also opened against Brazil and lost but looked well organised and mounted. The game against the USA had shaken us out of any misconceptions of our skills and confirmed to us that a strong desire to win and better discipline, plus the good use of set plays, was our way forward. We started slowly and although we had the majority of the possession we were unable to pull out a convincing lead. After a couple of ‘discussions’ we began to pull together and as the better horses started to appear, so did our goals. In particular some fantastic ones from Jack, who came alive towards the end of the game as his horses improved. Victory at 10-5 sounds easy but going into the fifth chukka we had only been up by two goals.
We now came up against an unbeaten Brazilian team, based around the very talented 5-goaler, Pedrinho, aka Pedro Zacharias, for a spot in the final. In the other league there had been some ferocious battles, particularly India vs Pakistan, which ended as Pakistan’s only victory in the tournament. Some very dangerous play saw one player off to hospital and another lucky not to have been flattened.
One particularly great game was India vs Italy. Both teams had a chance to go top of their league. The Indians would have been a little more aggrieved at their treatment by the referees were they not so polite. Umpiring is extremely difficult and the issue of nationality should be removed. Two Argentine referees with Italy playing was a bad call, and the conspiracy theories post-polo thrive on this. This is not good for the game or the atmosphere surrounding the tournament. Mind you, Fran Elizalde played fantastically well for Italy and must feel a little sad not to have been on the Argentine team. He was the best player at the tournament.
So the big game in this league was Argentina vs Italy. A very strange game which Italy dominated throughout. They should have been home and hosed by the last chukka but lost their goalscoring abilities and were only two goals up entering the last. Then some curious decisions by players and officials saw Argentina snatch victory on the bell.
England has never beaten Brazil in a World Cup game, so the scheduling of this match two days before the final was bad luck. The horses would be flat for the final unless one team managed to win easy. Argentina’s last game was the previous day to ours. How to play this team? Stop Pedrinho and trust our own game? In the end, it was a great game of polo – bar the result – played with good spirit by both teams. Neither team could pull out a significant difference so we entered the last chukka with England leading by one goal, and with our best horses to come. To me, Brazil looked beaten until disaster struck when Max’s best horse pulled up lame after one minute and he had to mount Jack’s spare. Brazil then had the advantage, as the horse we lost was a guarantee of goals for us. There was no repetition of horses until extra time and all our good horses were either playing or played. We fought on, first going down by one goal, then levelling through Max, then going down again only to get level again through a fantastic goal by Nick. With seconds to go we miss the chance to clear our lines and Brazil pounce on the hesitation to win. It was very sad way to go as I feel had Max’s horse not broken down, the game would have been ours for the taking. A standing ovation as we entered the players’ and sponsors’ marquee was lovely but could not take away the bitter feeling that the World Cup was over.
Congratulations to Argentina for beating Brazil in the final. Italy beat England to third place. So the Argentines took all the silverware, which is probably fair as their polo is streets ahead of the rest of us!
At this level, on unknown horses, it is not easy to develop complicated plays out of defence. Put ting the ball behind opposition players and creating a horserace is extremely difficult to defend