A win for England – weekend polo results from Hickstead
By Victoria Elsbury-Legg
As the high goal continues under the Florida sun in Palm Beach, here in England Spring was very much in the air this weekend at the All England Club, Hickstead for Saturday’s matches between England, Clogau Wales and Ireland.
First up at 11.30am for the 12-goal challenge match was Clogau Wales – captained by Ricky Cooper (1) playing alongside Roddy Matthews (5) and Roddy Williams (7) facing the first Ireland team to take to the arena on 7th March 2015 – Richard Fagan (1), Max Hutchinson (4) and Michael Henderson (6). By the start of chukka number four Ireland were in the lead 14 – 5 – a lead they held onto, finally winning the game 20 – 9.
Next up for the 2015 International Arena Polo Test Match was another Irish team – Ryan Pemble (8), Richard Le Poer (7) and captain, Seb Dawnay (8), who were facing an England line-up of – Jamie Le Hardy (7), Jonny Good (8) and captain, Chris Hyde (9). This was to be an historic match in arena polo history, as it was the highest handicapped match to be played in the arena between these two teams. There was lots of fast and exciting polo which was all captured by Hickstead’s official photographers – Images of Polo, and by half time it was another Irish team who were also in the lead with a scoreboard reading Ireland 9 – 5 England.
It was all set to look like Ireland’s polo team would replicate the results of their rugby counterparts in the previous weekends Six Nations match, but England came back strong leading 15 -13 with just over 2 minutes left in the final chukka, winning the match 18 goals to Ireland’s 13, and once again restored their place as winners of the International Arena Polo Test Match as they lifted The Byran Morrison Trophy over their heads.