Mr. Waffle and I had a great time in the Phoenix park today where we went to watch a polo match. Have you ever been? I can totally recommend. The rules are immensely complex and involve, inter alia, handicapping each player (you start at -2 and work your way up with +1 generally being international standard and 8-10 people in the world at +10); the direction of play reversing after every goal; and a lot about the line of play which I can’t say I totally understood. All of this (and more) was explained to me by a friendly Australian who was unfortunate enough to be sitting beside me. The commentator knew many of his audience were pretty ignorant and spent some time explaining the five kinds of foul in polo; to be honest not really time well-spent as far as I was concerned, I remain pretty confused on this point.
I have no idea what the standard of play was but it was extremely exciting as the horses and riders went tearing up and down the, I want to say, pitch. During the break all of the spectators went out and stamped the divots back in place which I found kind of hilarious. I will certainly be back with my new found polo knowledge. It is free to attend and numbers are low so they need all the support they can get.
