What you see is just different than reality, at least when it comes to what I said:
Additionally it will be impossible to ref that. No no no… please don’t ruin the game.
“Additionally” is not “primarily”. That rule will just not work even if reffed perfectly. Basketball and polo are different by huge margin. We are talking about limiting offensive play to 24 seconds in a sport that finishes in scores like 4:5 (20 minutes games) when teams play coast to coast… just because You saw/experienced that rule in a sport that in the same time period averages in 40-50 points by each team. Then differences in ball handling, passing accuracy , passing receiveing acuraccy, movement characteristic, positioning, tactics - almost no similarities in these 2 sports except that both sports are played on court by humans and there is one ball.
Situations in which people keep ball “endlessly” happens not that often. It is actually opposite… we tend to get rid of possession too fast. And even if we think that team control the ball for prolonged period of time there is usually many shots that were just rebounded back so it is not a single 2 minute-long action . If we will limit time for offensive action to some arbitral value it will just end up with coast to coast shooting because waiting for any opening in that sport takes time. It will just mean that if your initial sprint with ball lost its dynamic then there is almost no chance to find another opening for a shot in that period of time.
For me it looks like trying to fight problem that doesn’t exist with solution that won’t work.
It’s a bit unfair to came up with idea that doesn’t bring significant attention and support and then try to say that idea is great but people are too lazy to give it a try. Maybe idea is just wrong?
Anyway… there are many tournaments that bring some new ideas into sport - nothing keeps you from organising a tournament with such a rule introduced. I will fully support it. But please, don’t ruin Broccoli!
i hear your dialogue and find it relevant , and a bit more developed than most.
its true that we will never know if we dont try , and probably the hardest part is to find a balance to the new rule, maybe 24/8 is not the most accurate time for polo and maybe the concept of timed possession can be very different from basket ball
and im not trying to ruin anyones tournament lol just said that it was easy to enforce with the lcd pannel of this type , and i mentioned a lds not the brocoli u mixing up a few other things we can discuss this week end but good chat
You are right, I don’t know why I mixed it up with Broccoli. Maybe now I will just be worried about any tournament with a proper LDC score board that you attend :P
My suggestion on this topic would be to update the rule on scooping to be time based like ball-jointing rather than this arbitrary “3x direction changes”.
I think I get what the intent is but imo the term becomes meaningless when you try to apply it and some players can scoop so fast that it’s not possible to tell what they do exactly so it’s never called out (even though some scoops may be invalid depending on how you apply the rule? But who wants to stop the game to have a discussion about how exactly a specific scoop was executed…).
Alternatively, if it is defined as 1, 2 or 3 seconds maximum (whatever is agreed), then it would at least be very simple to ref by anyone without changing the current situation for players.
“Is scooping becoming a hindrance to open and collective play?
Is self-scoop the unloved child of solo polo?
Should we think to limit the amounts of scoops per individual ball possession?
Should we limit scooping to passes?”
Alejcar seems to argue that scooping is the origin of ego-play. He points out a wrong issue. Self-scooping is not the issue.
It’s s clear that one can keep possession of the ball for the same amount of time, with or without scooping, or can take shots on most occasions rather than passing to teammates.
The issue for the team play is the personnal understanding of the game situation, and the consequent décision to shoot/ pass/ keep the ball, when a player is biaised/inclined towards keeping the ball much more frequently, while a posteriori team resuls are desapointing and indicating that the decisions were seemingly poor.
Self-scooping is not the issue, the issue is not the technique that the biaised player uses to keep the ball. The issue is the personnal attitude and decisions of the biaised player.
Disapointing results, and not imposed rules, should regulate the biaised player. One should learn when to shoot/pass/keep the ball. It’s a non-sense to impose regulation when the natural selection for nice and efficient game actions is already at work.
There are easier ways to restrict solo-ball possession: time limit, regardless of the tool used to maintain possession. Time limit instead of killing one creative, constructive and harmless tool.
Still, killing the liberty of choice about what to do with the ball and when to do it, is killing the evolution of the game.
Also, I see 2 wrong shortcuts in Alejcar’s arguments framed as questions:
collective play equals passing play only. ← no.
scooping to self prevents passing play. ← no.
here is why:
collective play is alarger concept: is a correct team coordination, that includes passing, but resumes not to passing only.
one easy exemple:
A player with the ball having 2 equally easy options: pass or shoot. They may choose any of 2, a scored goal is not garranteed for either of 2 choices, because polo is a game and one can only estimate ( very vaguely) some probabilities of success.
Meanwhile, 2 things are rather certain : no shot, no goal; and that the main objective of a team is to create shooting lines, and if not available, then passing lines.
So when a player choses to shoot ( which can’t be qualified a priori as a bad choice), team mates have to work in coordination to ensure the ball comes back to their team, if no goal.
And if that player can score from the distance of their own net, as soon as they touch the ball, and they take that shot while mates ensure the ball recovery, it is team play, even without passing in this precise action.
Who wants to forbid one touch shots? Who wants to impose a number of passes before the shot is allowed? Good for traimnet -yes. Good for polo evolution? I doubt.
scooping to self may prevent from loosing the ball and making the pass 2 secs later, which can create different opportunities, opme shhoting lines, creating space and better passing lines.
I think you’ve offered a comprehensive knock down argument against the criticism of scooping as a hindrance to collective play - under any reasonable definition. However, there are many more reasonable criticisms of scooping that your argument fails to address.
Consider that the level of scooping supervenes on the size of the open end of the mallet. The gamut of scoopiness hypothetically runs from double cap - no scooping, to lacrosse nets - only scooping. Given that the current maximum size of the open end is an arbitrary, it might help to examine a priori what the substantive consequences of changing the mallet head dimensions might be. Such a discussion might help capture more completely the nature of the problem, or lack thereof.
I don’t see anyone arguing that we should enlarge the open end dimensions of the mallet and it is unlikely that we have arrived at the perfect balance of scoop play by chance. It is hardly contentious to suggest that whatever competitive downsides exist for scoopy play would diminish if scooping were easier. While there are some practical limitations to increasing the size of the open end given that an insufficient chamfer dimension would mean the ball could lodge itself in the open end, it is not difficult to imagine that we could institute an open end shape that is much larger than the current maximum without risking such an outcome. So, why not make scooping easier? Surely it would add to the possibilities of manipulating the ball at speed?
If we generalise this sentiment to the matter of open end diameter by changing the rule to something that says, “any open end internal diameter is allowed so long as the construction prevents the ball becoming lodged” then we can let the natural selection effect take it’s course no? Would that be ok? What would be the result? Would the game be more interesting and more creative play be the result?
If scooping is not a priori bad then why not increase the open end diameter and let nature take it’s course? Perhaps nobody is arguing for a larger open end diameter because people who scoop don’t want it to become easier as it will deplete what they believe is a current competitive advantage and people who choose not to scoop, do not want something they see as a competitive hindrance to become a competitive advantage. Whatever is true, I’m fairly certain that what we are discussing here at bottom is open end diameter and whether it should be larger or smaller. Let’s at least have this discussion before we resort to the madness of time restrictions on possession…
Is it even possible to go back to a smaller head size now that ice cream scoops are out in the world? Maybe have a 3 year deadline to use up our bigger heads?
Scooping is difficult and as a result, I think it can be a hindrance when it doesn’t work well…which is sometimes often. At a tournament in Dec 24, I was able to steal the ball multiple times from someone who insisted on scooping poorly,over and over and over again. It has its applications but it can be done poorly.
At the very least, re-leagilize stick on stick! (Speaking strictly from a NAs perspective here, pardon my European ruleset ignorance).
To get back on topic and Cleftin’s question I’d like to add a bit of historical context (again, from and NA standpoint). The reason mallet diameter restrictions were expanded on the first place is simply because fixcraft released the first mallet head. As you would imagine it immediately gained widespread acceptance and NAH adjusted the rules to allow it.
Prior to that anything larger than ABS/HDPE was considered a “cheater mallet”.
u mixing up a few other things we can discuss this week end but good chat