Two South Island teams feature in polo matches

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 38

Two South Island teams feature in polo matches

Two South Island teams will feature in the polo matches held during each day of the Canterbury A. and P. show this year. The cost of bringing a North Island team to Christchurch, without sponsorship, for the three days has ruled out any chance of the usual inter-island clash, but for all that there will be some exciting polo in store. Instead, the North of the South will play the South of the South.

Both, teams are evenly ranked. All three players in the “North” team are on a handicap of three, as against two threes and a two for the “South” team. The “North’s” No. 1, Brian Storer will have two ponies, Spice and Pipperade, which were apart of his champion team of four during last year’s show.

Storer’s teammates will be Beau Mcßae and Brian Burrowes, both from the Amuri club, Mcßae has recently returned from a period in Zimbabwe, where he had the chance to play the occasional game of polo. The “South” team comprises Warren Wells (Ashley 3), and Denis O’Sullivan (3) and Stuart Crutchley (2), both from Ashburton. Crutchley is a strong, fearless rider who played formerly for Taieri, while O’Sullivan is the younger brother of Emmett, wellknown and respected in polo ranks, and a former South Island player. Polo is a fast, free-mov-ing game, which demands the utmost in skill from players and ponies alike. With a match on air three days of the show, of four seven-and-a-half minute

chukkas each, the ponies will all need to be fit. Exhibition matches such as these might have only' three players to a team, but the showgrounds • are smaller than usual polo grounds, and the ball rebounding off the fences adds to the excitement. There are also some interesting clashes of team personnel. The two Ashley players, Wells and Storer, will oppose each other; Storer and O’Sullivan are the only two to have previously played show polo. Storer was in last year’s winning South Island team, and O’Sullivan played last in the successful team of 1981; and Wells and Storer were a vital combination in the Ashley team which beat Amuri in the final of the Gould Cup at Ryans Road last April.