The best teams don't automatically get the invitations

The question asked on The Backshot water polo social media site: “Is the OLD BOYS NETWORK killing off the growth of Water Polo?” opens an interesting, and not uncomplicated, discussion.

Here’s what the post said:

This team from Reddam Helderfontein have just won National Co-Eds in their first year of competing and without a single Matric, BUT... They weren't welcome to compete at the upcoming Saints Fest, despite beating teams that have been invited. And the reason given? They apparently dont have a "traditional connection". So it seems that tournaments have nothing to do with making sure the best teams get to compete against each other (Herschel, arguably the 2nd best girls team in the country at present have also not cracked an invite) but everything to do with who scratches who's back. You can only come to MY water polo tournament if I can come to YOUR rugby festival. Reddam, Umhlanga seem to have the same problem... no matter how good they get, they will never crack an invite to the big tournaments. Not because they aren't good enough, but because of some bullshit arrangement between the schools themselves. Or maybe we just need someone from the larger tournaments to explain to all those angry parents who have chosen to invest in growing the sport why their schools are apparently not good enough.

The short answer is no. Water polo, especially girls water polo, is still growing all the time and a lot of that growth is outside of the “old boys network”, whatever that is. If the “old boys network” refers to the older, more traditional schools (many of which are girls-only schools), then it’s also true to say that the game continues to grow at pace within the network, schools are investing in new facilities, have more and better coaches, field more teams and stage more and bigger tournaments.

So, the growth of water polo isn’t being killed by the traditional schools. The question posed flows, however, from certain schools (very successful ones) not being invited to certain tournaments. That’s a different story, and as I said, it’s not a simple one.

In the first instance, one has to acknowledge the efforts made by schools belonging to some of the newer independent schooling groups to thrive at water polo. Reddam House Helderfontein is one of the examples cited. Their boys won the National Co-ed Festival tournament, in their 1^st year of competing. That’s a great achievement. The school is barely a year old, and it has undoubtedly the best indoor pool and training facility in the land. I was there while it was being built and the intention, openly expressed, was that it would become the centre of water polo in South Africa.

Recruitment and coaching will follow and I’d be surprised if that doesn’t happen. Reddam House Consantia showed it can be done. There are other schools who have built themselves into water polo powerhouses. Some are private schools of the type I mentioned – Crawford College Lonehill for example, and Reddam House Umhlanga, apparently. Other schools of various types have targetted polo as the sport they want to shine in, like Pearson and Stirling in the Eastern Cape and Clifton College in Durban. They have invested wisely, worked incredibly hard and they have the support of very strong parent bodies. They deserve all the success they are achieving.

The Backshot piece implies that there are certain “big” tournaments. I assume those are the ones that have been going longest (the ones that these new emerging powers aren’t invited to). The Saints Invitational tournament is named, others I’d guess, would be the SACS tournament and the King Edward Festival.

There are schools who play at those three events each year who are undoubtedly not as strong as some of those who don’t get to play there. If school sport were arranged on a league basis, with promotion and relegation in place, they would be out, and the rising stars would be in, no argument.

But that’s not how it goes. School sport has to be an educational activity first and foremost and that means winning, and the strength of teams, really have to take a back seat. If a principal agrees to the exclusion of a long-standing participant from his/her event because they are not good enough (and that has happened at one of the “big three” tournaments) then that principal is on shaky ground. morally and educationally, because winning is not supposed to be the objective of school sport.

And, remember, for every emerging school that “cracks an invite” to a tournament, an established participant has to be given the boot.

So, old boys rules do apply. But it’s not that simple. Life is about relationships and schools interact on all sorts of levels. Do you drop a school that you have played against in multiple codes for many years because their water polo team isn’t performing?

On the other hand, these tournaments are marketing exercises for schools and the organisers sit with a dilemma. Your tournament gains in prestige when you have the top performing schools in the land there, but then again it doesn’t look good for you when the new kids on the block walk off with the honours.

Of course there’s a fair degree of hypocrisy involved. As I said, it’s not uncomplicated.

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Time to send the useless refs packing

I saw on Facebook yesterday that someone had gone to the trouble to note the exact times, minute and second, of the incorrect decisions made by Jerome Garces that disadvantaged the Springboks in the World Cup game against New Zealand on Saturday. He even supported his claims with clips from the game and he was right, right and right. The French ref, as we all suspected, is perfectly capable of seeing some things, while missing others.

That’s a bit obsessive, and typical of a fan who doesn’t want to accept that his team has been beaten, but it’s pretty good research.

There was no record of Garces’ decisions that went our way, costing the All Blacks and, of course a poor referee will make mistakes both ways. And that’s what Graces is, a poor referee who should never be allowed to appear at this level and yet, amazingly, he is clearly highly rated by the powers that be and is often given the biggest games.

I don’t go with those who call him biased – that would surely have been picked up by now. These matches are reviewed and dissected by the referee bosses and they wouldn’t allow it, although they don’t seem to mind some pretty basic errors of law, interpretation and eye sight.

I’ve spoken to one or two international referees in other sports and I’ve been told that at the Olympics, for example, a referee who makes a mistake on the laws gets sent home without officiating another game.

World Rugby have made it difficult for their referees by adding protocols, directives and interpretations to the laws. Those, surely, are now part of the laws and what happens in other games should apply. Sure, the referee can’t see everything but he should, especially now that the assistant referees have executive powers and there’s a TMO with the power of the slow motion replay. Please don’t appoint people who miss what’s going on.

Don’t make excuses for them – if they, between them, miss for example, Kieran Reid pulling back Du Toit at the lineout, send the whole bunch packing. The non-debatable principle is that the players have the right to have their game fairly and competently adjudicated. Anyone who prevents that from happening should not be there.

The late Norman McFarland, one of the sharpest rugby brains I ever met, used to compare a rugby game to a human personality. Events and occurrences early on influence how it develops later and it can change direction completely because of something that happens at any stage. He was fiercely critical of referees – I was on the receiving end once or twice – and that was precisely because of the effect an incorrect decision can have on the rest of the game.

It’s not as simple as keeping a tally of the points scored as the result of errors. It’s far more complex than that.

That’s why I don’t go along with those who say things like “Ja, the referee was poor but we would have lost anyway because we played badly.” In any game there are things that you can control and things that you can’t. You can’t control the weather, you can’t control how well the opponents play and, yes, you can’t control the referee and you have to adjust your play to fit in with the way he is blowing. But you do have the right to insist that he knows and applies the law consistently and that he doesn’t miss the obvious.

The players and coaches are the ones who really count here. Why not give them a say. They can’t decide who gets to ref them, I agree, but if they can show, with evidence of the kind that I saw on Facebook, that the referee can’t do the job, they should see him get sent home and never meet him on the field again.