Polo Rules: Shot blocked by a footdown

Ben and Kevin both do that diving move a lot. But this is not a footdown. They dive and hit the ball with their mallet before they footdown. As long as they make contact with the ball before they touch their foot down, that is arguably legal.

Indeed it is legal, not even arguably. As long as it's the mallet and not the body.

Mike: I know you want to make a rule that says you have to have a foot on the pedal to make it legal, or something like that, but that I've never seen that rule anywhere before. Have you heard of it elsewhere?

I've not seen it elsewhere that I can think of. I think we added it to the rules for the Shoreditch tourney last year when the only printed rules we knew about was the hardcourtbikepolo.com ones which are more than just a little vague. Basically the foot on pedals rule comes into play when using body to ball contact. Essentially eliminating somebody from kicking the ball, blocking with your foot or diving to block with your body.

So the original question with that rule in place makes it illegal to block the ball if you're footdown. The question remains, what to do about it.