Polocrosse a family affair

Polocrosse is very much a family affair where Paul and Sally McGrath are concerned.
The two experienced players will don their maroon uniforms once again for Queensland at the 2012 Barastoc Polocrosse Nationals being held in Warwick next month.
However, there won’t be the long road trip or weeks away from home they are used to when they have been selected to play for their state in previous years.
This time around, the family will only have a half-hour trip down the road to Warwick to play at the Nationals being held from April 23 to 29.
Both members of the Warwick Polocrosse Club, Paul and Sally McGrath have notched up 20 Polocrosse Nationals between them, and both have again been selected to play for Queensland at the upcoming championships being held at Warwick’s Morgan Park complex.
With their two daughters, Keely and Jordan, who are also keen polocrosse players, both competing as juniors for the Warwick club, the family will be spending plenty of time concentrating on polocrosse over the next six weeks.
Already, both Sally and Paul, who live and work on the 210 hectare “Darlington Stud”, at Greenmount, on the Darling Downs, have had their polocrosse horses in work for close to 12 weeks, getting them “in” a week before Christmas.
They are both seasoned campaigners when it comes to the physical horse sport. Both have represented Australia in polocrosse, with Paul playing in 1994 in a men’s test series, and Sally touring New Zealand in 2002 in an Australian women’s side, as well as playing at the World Cup in 2003.
Paul started playing for the Gold Coast Club at the age of 13, and has since been a member of both the Toowoomba and Cunningham clubs until he joined Warwick in 1987.
His first Nationals selection was as a reserve for the Queensland junior side in 1980 when the championships were held in Capel, Western Australia.
“I never got to play at those Nationals when I was 15, and they had no intermediate (Under 21) competition back then, so I went straight into the Open men’s competition out of juniors,” Paul said.
He had to wait another 10 years for selection, but he recalls the first Nationals he played at in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1990.
“I was in the Open men’s team and we got a flogging. We had a young section and a more experienced section, but never made the finals,” Paul said.
“In 1992, I was in the Queensland mixed team and we were beaten by New South Wales by one goal in the finals at Forbes,” he said.
“At the Nationals in Walkaway, Western Australia, in 1994, we didn’t do any good either. However, my fondest memories are of our bus trip across the Nullarbor.
“There were 11 of us on a 15-seater mini bus. Everything was fine on the way across, but on the way back everyone was tired and cranky – never again,” he laughed.
At the 1996 Nationals at Werribee, Victoria, Paul recalls the muddy and cold conditions, which were made worse when they were defeated by NSW again, in the Open Men’s final.