Royal Cornwall Show demo hailed great success

The Westcountry Warriors, a new UK polocrosse club who formed this year, and the UKPA itself combined forces last Saturday (the 6th of June) to put on a demonstration of polocrosse at the Royal Cornwall Show. The demo was hailed a great success and the crowd who packed around the main ring to watch certainly seemed to enjoy it greatly.

The demo squad consisted of the UK Captain Guy Robertson, fellow UK player Charlotte Pykett, George Boisseau and Olivia Hamilton of the Westcountry Warriors , Laura Scott of the Welsh Dragons and Iain Heaton of Ashfields. The team did a half an hour demonstration in the main ring on the Saturday afternoon; they initially demonstrated some polocrosse skills and then played a ten minute chukka with the three ladies taking on the three men. The contest was very even, with the crowd strongly favouring the girls side, and no one seemed quite sure of the final score but when Charlotte Pykett scored the final goal of the match the crowd definitely seem to feel that it was, at least, a moral victory for the ladies.

On the Sunday, having enjoyed some excellent Cornish hospitality at the home of Ros and David Boissseau on the Saturday night, Guy, Charlotte, Laura and Iain coached at a training day for the Westcountry Warriors for about 20 local pony club children. The cost of the coaching day were funded by the UKPA Southern region, with the Royal Cornwall show helping by paying the petrol costs of the players who travelled south to do the demo.

Iain Heaton, who is the UKPA's sports development officer, said it was a brilliant weekend all round, "It was really good to do the demo at the show, we had a great slot in between two major attractions in the main ring and we drew a very big crowd who seemed to really enjoy watching us. Plus we were lucky that during our demo the sun decided to shine, after raining for most of the day!" he commented, "It was also really enjoyable to coach so many new, keen young players on the Saturday. The Westcountry Warriors are trying really hard to grow the sport down in Cornwall and in the South west and its up to the UKPA to help them and support them in anyway we can. Hopefully by doing demos like that and having people like Guy and Charlotte down there coaching we will do that!!"