Sydney's lack of hockey fields is a major problem in developing the sport locally. Teams can't train enough during the week, and it's a nightmare trying to find fields for games on the weekend. Kings Langley Hockey Club trains on tennis courts. SHA may be scheduling matches in Narellan. Schools don't even think of offering hockey because there would be nowhere to play if people put their hands up.

So imagine you are responsible for all the fields in Sydney (true, managing even one turf is a bit of an issue for SUHC people, but that's another story...), and you get a call from an Association from outside Sydney. The guy says their two top junior teams are used to training on turf most days of the week, but can't get on their own turfs on Saturdays, so they'd like a turf in Sydney for an hour and a half each Saturday. Sunday and Friday nights aren't options because they play their local comp then. He asks if that would that be okay.

Of course it's not okay! We need our turfs to develop the sport in Sydney. If we had that under control things might be different, but that's not the case. We can't get enough time for our own Sydney players on Saturdays as it is, let alone giving turf time away to others.

You would also raise lots of other good points with the imaginary caller: For example, we want to develop everyone in Sydney, not just the elite; OR with all due respect, we think the right thing is to give all our players at least one game on the weekend before we start giving their elite players extra games;  OR we know they have lots of skilled juniors because they have been able to put in the hours on turf, so we'd like to use whatever turf time we have to get our own juniors up to their standard;  OR we realise their top players are good and that they'd all get into teams here if they lived here, but they don't live here, and first and foremost we ought to use local facilities to develop local players;  OR yes, we realise their elite guys are as good if not better than many of ours, but that doesn't mean we take have to develop their top players at the expense of our players generally.

The imaginary Association takes that on board and says that rather than sending their two top teams, they'll send three teams down/up/in, and we are welcome to put our top juniors in. That way our elite players also get an extra game and another development opportunity. it would only take That would mean maybe three hours of turf time on Saturday, though.  Wouldn't that be okay?

See above.

The imaginary Association acknowledges that disadvantaging Sydney's juniors for their own juniors could be a real issue. The solution they see is to involve the best juniors (and maybe seniors) from a number of other Associations so its not just them. They could all come to Sydney on Saturdays. It may mean they'll need five or six hours of turf time. It would be great for the development of all the players coming down/up/in, and some elite local players would also get a benefit from the run. Surely that's okay??

See above.

What's the point of this role-playing? From 2011 Sydney will have a new competition structure, but we will still have the same turf shortage. There will be questions about whether clubs from outside Sydney should be included in the elite Sydney competition. (Arguably not: it's a Sydney comp, not a weekly State Championship).  It may even be proposed that their junior clubs play in Sydney, although that would make travel for local juniors a serious issue.

Club involvement is only a symptom of the problem, though. The real issue is more fundamental. Sydney does not have enough turf time for its own needs. Allowing (or even encouraging) seniors and juniors from outside Sydney to double-up and use our turfs on weekends would mean local players are losing an already limited set of opportunities. Development is a great goal, but we need to be pro-active in developing our own players before we develop other players. Given these thrats, its no wonder that  junior hockey in Sydney is struggling!

A Sydney Junior club official

Hockey has been very adept at updating its rules to improve the game. Its time to have a serious rethink on short corners.

What is the problem with short corners today? It comes down to the focus on drag flicking, where one team can smash the ball towards the bodies of the other team at any height or speed, and  a set play has a very high likelihood of scoring.  Let's list the main problems with this (in no particular order);

·       It is dangerous - see here for example;

·       It is dangerous;

·       Players target short corners, not field goals;

·       Specialist drag flickers have more control of a game's outcome than all other players;

·       Young players do not like the danger and are discouraged from playing;

·       It is dangerous.

Short corner hits cannot be above a certain height to avoid the obvious danger to players. The FIH rules allow drag flicks in a short corner can be of any height, unless it is dangerous. Flicking has now become endemic to avoid this restriction... thereby recreating the exact danger the `hit' rule wants to avoid. The `disallow when dangerous' aspect of drag flicking is ignored in short corners. Has anyone seen a goal disallowed because the drag flick might have maimed a player on only a slightly different trajectory? And when players are indeed felled, the drag flicker usually gets another chance to do the same on the basis that the first player stopped a legitimate shot on goal with his or her body.

Other sports have been much more proactive in protecting their players, their reputation and their future when these dangerous situations have become common. Cricket is the best comparison. Batsmen have a ball of similar weight travelling towards them at similar speeds. Now, in cricket, batsmen (particularly juniors) must wear full helmets even though the ball starts some 20m away and they have a little time to evade it. They often wear significant protective padding as well. In hockey the players start just 10m away - and they run at the ball without meaningful protection, if indeed they have any!  Other sports also adapt their rules to ensure new types of play are banned as they emerge. The rugby codes, for example, have banned spear tackles, grapple tackles and tackles of players in the air. Their sports are the better for it.

It appears the AHL will experiment with new rules in 2010 to avoid these shortcomings in penalty corners. Congratulations to them for having the courage to try to make things better. It is only surprising that junior associations haven't already started banning drag flicks in the interests of their players.

Other sports also try to encourage players to score from the field rather than from penalties close to the goal line.  The rugby codes have a history of reweighting the points allocated to different types of scoring in order to discourage penalty-seeking. Hockey has gone the other way: teams are now universally encouraged to seek a penalty rather than score a goal. And why not; they get the same points for it, and having a player with one specific skill (drag flicking) means teams have a much higher chance of scoring than relying on field goals.  It is highly unlikely that FIH will change the scoring system... so it needs to change the rules of play.

We look forward to seeing how the AHL goes this year. It would be great to have their new rules tried by all our juniors as soon as possible.

A fullback's parent

The Crawford report was released in mid November 2009 and recommended that sport funding be restructured. You can find it on this site or download it here - but its 14.4MB. A very loose summary would be that it recommends that funding be based more on whether a lot of people get involved, rather than on whether a few people win medals. A focus on medals might be great for those involved at the pinnacle of a sport, and great copy for the press, but there is serious doubt that it is a defensible way to benefit everyone who is interested in sport.

We should all understand why Government funding is provided to any group - sporting groups included - and what that group delivers in return. It is being spent, after all, on our behalf. 

The discussion on sport funding degenerated very quickly. Sporting bodies proved surprisingly adept at playing the man and not the ball. The AOC seemed offended that the public's obligation to fund the pursuit of Olympic medal-winning was questioned. Former or current elite athletes who administer sport defended the ongoing expectations of current and future elite athletes. Health professionals were pleased that funding might be directed at preventative action for all, rather than making a few people fitter. Small sports were concerned they would lose their funding to sports that could be self-funding. Self-funding sports were happy that another source of revenue may become available.  Interestingly, no-one seems to question one the Crawford Report's major concerns, which is that we have not collected the data one would expect to have in order to support the current process for sports funding.

The good news for us is that hockey is identified in the Report as one of the sports that is part of the national psyche. It has mass appeal and broad community involvement as well as a well-publicised elite.  The Report says "Swimming, tennis, cricket, cycling, the football codes, netball, golf, hockey, basketball, surfing and surf lifesaving are among the most popular sports in Australia, a part of the national psyche. Many are team sports and are the sports we are introduced to as part of our earliest education and community involvement.

"If more money is to be injected into the system, then we must give serious consideration to where that money is spent. If we are truly interested in a preventative health agenda through sport, then much of it may be better spent on lifetime participants than almost all on a small group of elite athletes who will perform at that level for just a few years."

Discussion on the AOC and the perceived slights to individual athletes is misplaced. The Crawford Reports highlights that we need to understand what we want to achieve with our sports funding before we sign any blank cheques.  If the prime objective is to win medals now, the funds must of course be spent on those at the pinnacle. If the prime objective is to create better competitors in the future, then it is not quite so simple. A common view is that elite performance ultimately depends on the depth of participation, so this is the area that ought to be funded. And if we want to increase the level of community involvement in healthy activities generally, the seems no nexus to elite funding at all. 

The Crawford Report addresses funding for sports on a national level, but the same questions apply to State and even local sporting organisations. At its simplest, should we as a Club, or HNSW, be looking to subsidise lots of Under 9 and Under 11 players, or should we be subsidising a single Premier, State or national player?  "Sport" gets a "benefit" either way, but not all benefits are equal, and they are not equally effective or enduring. 

No doubt the answer will be that everyone wants to cater for both ends of the spectrum, and no doubt (almost)everyone will say they already use funds for both objectives. We should judge people by their actions rather than their words, though. If both objectives are indded targeted we need to assess the current expenditure to determine whether it is actually aimed at striking a fair balance in meeting both objectives. Does the balance in expenditure reflect the intended balance between the objectives? Or more bluntly -  do the expense statements  reflect the Mission Statements?

It is good to see that most of SUHC's expenses are for the members as a whole, not just an elite. Coaching expenses across all grades, SUSF payments and turf hire (a separate story...) are the major items. It is even arguable that SUHC does not dedicate enough time to the elite side of our game given the huge effort we put into the social side.

We should all be asking our hockey administrators how they are spending their funds, and whether the balance of spending meets the balance of their objectives. More importantly, are they sure that the current spending patterns are the best way to meet the sport's longer term objectives?

Sport is better without lawyers. We have umpires to apply the rules of the game. We have lost the plot if we need to bring lawyers into the games to apply the laws of the land. The plot's also lost if technicalities are more important than the spirit of fairness and sportsmanship.

Boards are better without lawyers. It is cheaper to hire specific legal skills by the hour, rather than to engage someone for a year or more. Boards should also avoid conflicts, and there is a real conflict if one board member is advising all board members on legal issues, including themselves.

Legal skills are important in management, though. Many groups manage other people's money or other people's interests, and those other people are protected by governance arrangements. Governance arrangements are second nature to a (good) lawyer.  Lawyers can bring other skills as well.

It was therefore interesting to see in March that HNSW was seeking a director specifically with legal skills.  The person was not being sought to provide legal advice to the board, so it implied that HNSW would be focusing more on governance. That seemed sensible given the impact that HNSW's decisions can have on other people (and occasionally their money) in selections and pathways. Good governance does not guarantee good outcomes, but it certainly guarantees the integrity of the process.

In July HNSW issued a Board Update to announce Alexandra Rose's appointment as a director. She is a lawyer with an impressive CV, and should be a valuable addition to HNSW.

It may be a coincidence, but HNSW's Board Update was issued just six days after Barack Obama spoke on a global stage about the importance of governance. In Ghana's parliament Obama declared:

"...history offers a clear verdict: governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable, and more successful than governments that do not.

This is about more than holding elections - it's also about what happens between them. Repression takes many forms, and too many nations are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty... No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.

In the 21st century, capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the key to success - strong parliaments and honest police forces; independent judges and journalists; a vibrant private sector and civil society. Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in peoples' lives."

The next HNSW Board Update came out on 26 August. It concerned HNSW's decision to move the U13 Boys to Half State Championships. This was a contentious decision, but let's consider the process and not the decision itself. One assumes an institution like HNSW would manage the process in a way that far exceeded the governance benchmarks set by Obama for emerging democracies. 

The August Update starts by saying that the U13 Boys Half State Championship question was discussed at the February Members Forum. That's correct, but a more transparent release might mention that the Forum discussed and opposed moving the U13 to Half State Championships. It also rejected the proposal that State Championships all be within 2-3 hours of Sydney.

Submissions were sought by the Game Management Committee (GMC) prior to the Forum. It's impossible to know if any submissions were made, or what they said, as there is no record of a GMC meeting since February, and the GMC February minutes don't mention the topic. The HNSW minutes are also silent on this topic in February and March.

Six months of official silence later, however, HNSW suddenly sought "final feedback" from Associations on the Boys U13 State Championships. The request came out on a Friday afternoon with responses due by the following Thursday (the 13th).

Asking for "final feedback" raises many questions. Had HNSW formally sought "initial feedback" on the topic? Was "initial feedback" limited to the submissions to HNSW sought by the GMC ahead of the February Members' Forum? Are GMC and HNSW interchangeable for these purposes? Were discussions at the Forum counted as "submissions"? Was lobbying and oral feedback after the Members' Forum relevant? And what would be done with the `final" feedback that HNSW was now seeking?

And, with all the goodwill in the world, what aspect of governance makes it reasonable for HNSW suddenly to allow only four business days to volunteer groups to prepare final responses on a hotly debated topic?

The August HNSW Board Update goes on to say that 12 submissions were received by the due date, that they were considered by the GMC on the 16th and that they were "evenly balanced". The singular focus on "submissions received by the due date" rings alarm bells. Was feedback that came on the 14th or 15th ignored on this technicality, even though it could easily have been considered? And what does "evenly balanced" mean? Were six Associations in favour and six against, having made just one comment or submission each?  Did Associations which sent a combined or common submission get counted as one?  Did the 12 submissions include comments or feedback from the Members Forum in February? Would excluded submissions have moved the balance?  Or were there six positive reasons and six negative arguments raised, which were measured by number and not by strength? Was feedback sought on the success or otherwise of the Girls Under 13 Half State Championships, which must be a comaparable experiment now into its fourth year (or longer)?

Although the feedback was sought by HNSW it was apparently for the GMC, because the GMC is said to have considered it on the 16th (minutes not available) and made a decision. HNSW is implementing that decision. Again there seem to be more governance questions: as Obama said, capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the things that matter.  Is it appropriate to make a contested decision like this with only three days to consider responses? Had GMC previously considered the issue anyway and reached a conclusion that remained unchanged? Although the GMC has no minutes since February, one assumes HNSW had some basis for wanting comments on such short notice. Did HNSW consider information other than the 12 "evenly balanced" submissions and the GMC decision in making its decision, or did it rely entirely on the GMC to ensure the HNSW community was involved?  Did HNSW consider the Members Forum output?  And did HNSW debate the decision or simply accept whatever GMC recommended?

The Board Update's final emotive appeal for support is unfortunate. Solid, objective reasons should be given to support a proposal that half HNSW's interested members apparently oppose. It is not objective to imply that a lack of support for the Half State concept is a lack of support for the players and teams.

So, Alexandra, over to you. Barack Obama expects transparency, reliability and capability from institutions in emerging democracies. What would he expect of HNSW?

An ex- lawyer

As yet another team finds on Friday that it has to supply its own umpires on Saturday, we have to ask: where have all the umpires gone?

It doesn't matter that SHUA is gone and SHA is running the show, because in the end we are dealing with the same pool of people. So why do fewer and fewer people want to umpire?

I see three major issues: "helping out" is out of fashion, umpiring is getting harder, and umpires are getting less and less support (and more and more unjustified criticism) for doing their job.

Let's generalise, but people are now mostly focussed on what everyone else owes them. Giving something back is seen as a sign of weakness, if it's considered at all. People are less community minded, and that means they are less interested in helping sports by umpiring. The attitude to umpiring is "Why me?" rather than "Why not?" 

The increased focus on individual interests also means people see things in terms of their personal, team or club (tribal?) rights, rather than as part of a bigger picture. If their team or club require it they might umpire, but they have no interest in doing it for something as remote as SHA or HNSW, and certainly not for the sake of some other club.

This is not new. But it is the background to understanding why umpires are becoming scarcer.

The second issue is that umpiring hockey is getting harder. The new materials used in sticks, the new hitting techniques and the ever-improving playing surfaces combine to make hockey an incredibly fast sport. This year the new free hit rule has made it even faster. That may be good for players and spectators, but we have to recognise that it has made things a lot harder for umpires.

Umpires now have to cover more ground more quickly to keep up with play. They have to be almost as fit as the players on the field to do their job properly. If they aren't they simply cannot be in position to see the play and apply the rules consistently. Umpiring has become much more demanding, and umpires know full well that they are no doubt missing some things because they cannot always get to the right position in time. Rather than umpire badly, many experienced umpires prefer not to umpire at all.

The third issue flows directly from these first two issues. Spectators and players feel aggrieved because they see the things that umpires miss. This happens more and more often with the new rules. And from their perspective of personal rights, the flow of disputed umpiring decisions becomes a personal affront. An umpire might just be applying (more or less correctly) the rules of a game, but people see any sequence of errors as a fundamental breach of their individual rights, and they immediately and vocally criticise the umpire for it.

Worse, this vocal criticism is tolerated - if not encouraged - by some teams and clubs. The whole group is happy to see umpiring errors as a breach of their collective personal rights. Their sense of outrage is then justified because everyone reacts the same way. The umpire may think a decision was part of the ebb and flow of a sporting contest, but it is treated as a personal outrage, regardless of how good or bad it was. The world will not stop turning over one missed transgression, but that s not the perspective of the bellowing spectators.

So we have a vicious circle. Young people are less willing to take up umpiring. Current umpires are finding it increasingly difficult to umpire without making mistakes. Players and spectators are increasingly critical of umpires because of the mistakes. Many experienced umpires don't enjoy the experience of working harder and being abused for it, so they don't want to umpire. They pull out and we have a lower average standard of umpiring. So we have more mistakes, more player and spectator tirades, and even fewer people wanting to umpire. 

Is there a solution?

The first step to solving these problems is that we need MORE umpires for each hockey game.

Two umpires are simply not enough to ensure the rules of hockey are applied consistently given its current speed and technicality.

If we had three umpires on the field they would need to run less and they would see more. Lack of supreme fitness wouldn't stop someone being a good umpire. The pool of available umpiring talent would increase because most would-be umpires are not as fit as the players. We would never have enough umpires if they had to be that fit. 

The level of player and spectator dissatisfaction would decrease because the rules would be applied more consistently. That would mean fewer mistakes, less player and spectator outrage, less abuse... and more people willing to umpire.
 
Other sports have had to confront the same issues. As players get stronger and as equipment gets better they are getting faster, but they still want their rules to be applied fairly and properly.  Hockey is possibly the fastest team sport in the world, but it has only two umpires. Lacrosse is the other contender for fastest team sport, and it usually has three on-field umpires.

Slower and more interrupted games almost all have more than two umpires  Rugby union and soccer have three (ref and two touch judges), rugby league now has four (two refs, two touch judges), baseball has up to six while grid-iron and AFL have up to seven (one to three field umpires, two boundary umpires and two goal umpires)! So hockey is probably failing to learn from the experience of others.

The second step is to require players to umpire a number of games each year so they appreciate the umpire's aspect. They could do this in Juniors, Women's, Veterans or Men's, but it should be a pre-requisite to registration in the following year. If a competition has a bye, for example, the players in the team with the bye should be required to umpire the games in their competition that week.  We need to make the players more appreciative of the fact that they are the ultimate beneficiaries of all the work done by all the officials and administrators, and they need to put more back in before we lose the capacity to stage matches.

The third step is to give umpires a greater level of clear public recognition for their skills and achievements. At the simplest level this could be some form of badge or shirt that indicates the grading of umpires, and people know immediately that someone on the field has put in the effort to rise to a particular level.  Junior umpires will often push themselves further if they get public recognition, so we should provide them with some form of recognition every time they take the field, not just when they get to umpire a major game. It could be done in seniors as well as juniors. At the other end of the development spectrum, players and spectators should be less likely to deliver torrents of abuse if they know an umpire is still a beginner. Even the most self-centred of players or spectators understands that much.

Finally, we need to be smart about eliminating umpire abuse from players. We should insist that players who are red, yellow or green carded for umpire abuse are made to umpire a number of games at an acceptable standard before they can play again. If they have to spend weeks practising (and therefore not playing) in order to meet the required standard then so be it. It would indicate they had little idea about umpiring to start with.
 
They should just be grateful if there are three umpires for each game, so that umpiring is not as demanding as it is today...

A Non-Umpire

More than half on NSW's population lives in Sydney so common sense says that more than half of the State's future greats should come from Sydney. They don't and won't. Regional and country players are a clear majority in recent State junior teams or squads. Why?

It isn't biased selections (even if City v Country is an oddity). The problem is the small number of players being developed in Sydney.

Hockey development in Sydney is a dog's breakfast.

SHA has a monopoly on men's hockey throughout Sydney, and notionally requires the top clubs to have some juniors. There are dozens of associations running smaller women's competitions all around the place, but they have no requirements for juniors. Sydney Junior Hockey runs a large city-wide mixed juniors competition. Then there are school-based competitions (mainly girls) that have no links to senior development, and some local junior competitions (usually girls only) that may or may not be linked to some form of pathway. 

No-one is responsible for developing hockey in Sydney. No-one looks at a bigger picture and tries to help the sport get the media attention and public support it deserves in Australia's biggest single market.  Everyone is focussed on protecting their own little patch.

HNSW has to run the whole State. There must be a limit to the amount of time it can spend trying to fix Sydney. True, HNSW has development pathways that are open to players from Sydney, even if the pathways look like technical drawings for a nuclear plant. These pathways are a conveyor belt for intending Olympians, though, and have nothing to do with developing broader participation in the sport.

SHA recently proposed that it should take control of junior hockey from SJHA. It thinks it can force a better level of player development. The idea is being discussed by SHA next month.

We would welcome your views on whether you think this is the best way to start to solve this problem.

Many people think it's a terrible idea. SJHA has been doing a relatively good job in developing juniors, while SHA has done nothing (or less than nothing). Why would you transfer responsibility to SHA with that background?  Monopolies often want to get bigger, but that does not mean they get better, or that they provide better outcomes. At the most positive, all that is happening is that we are shuffling the deckchairs while the Titanic is sinking.

SHA's recent efforts in assuming management of a junior girls comp would indicate its not even as good as just shuffling the deckchairs. There will be all sorts of reasons for the competition immediately crumbling, but the essence seems to have been  that SHA could not provide the time and effort needed to develop something where people weren't obliged to participate.

Other concerns about SHA being responsible for junior development include:

* SHA's major power is the threat of removing teams from Premier League. Threats are not the way to develop anything positive, let alone junior players;
* SHA's threats are only relevant to clubs that want to be in Premier League and which do not meet the latest SHA requirement. This threat is irrelevant to clubs that do not want to be in Premier League or which can slack off because they have met the SHA's  requirements;
* SHA is a monopolist. It has never had to pursue growth or development. It has left junior development to clubs - who are the same people who are running SJHA. What changes, other than that the people closer to the process having less control?
* Development is about attracting boys and girls to hockey. SHA is a bastion of male self-interest with no record of assisting girls. Its strategic plan is arguably anti-girl, but if girls choose not to play in SHA/SJHA competitions they will lose half their players. That means more than half the teams would fold as they wouldn't have minimum numbers; and finally
* Junior sport relies on volounteers, and many parents help because they enjoy adding real value to their local community. These people will be much less relevant if junior hockey is run by a group focused mainly on men's hockey, and there is a real risk that there will be fewer interested volounteers so the sport will go backwards.

So what's the answer? Perhaps SJHA should continue to run junior development until HNSW (or someone else) can develop a blueprint for making real changes in Sydney, not just a shuffle of the deckchairs. Perhaps all hockey associations should be required to treat junior development as a responsibility, not an optional extra? Perhaps the people who seem to do most to encourage new players (the schools) should be involved in these discussions? We don't know the best answer. But its time people started to think about it.

A Parent