Just to clarify it was impossible in this case to point directly at the SCP. The target I was shooting was lower in the sky than the pole, as such I would need a magical upside down tripod lest my scope has an unfortunate meeting with the tripod legs.
In my scenario last night where I aimed the scope below the SCP on purpose guiding would have been in the opposite direction at the very least. I.e. I was trying to turn clockwise from east to west while my target (under the pole) was moving from west to east.
I gave up trying to set my sideal rate in reverse not that it would have helped anyway and instead turned it off completely.
However ...
With guiding you're effectively adjusting what a scope is doing against an X-Y grid. I don't understand why the autoguider can't have guided on a target anyway, simply because it was reversed.
My only conclusion is that the guider won't move the mount fast enough since it was designed for minor adjustments rather than compensating for lack of sidreal tracking. In any case PHD calibrated ok but then went mental when guiding latching both RA and DEC outputs and very quickly lost the target (faster than not tracking at all
)