While Britain’s female water polo players will receive a record £4.5m in Lottery funding in the run-up to Rio, their unfunded male counterparts are facing up to life on a shoestring budget. Roger Guttridgetalks to the men charged with managing these contrasting situations.
Match Result – Colchester (U15s) 19 SC Torpedoes (u15s) 8
We knew from the home game at Crown Pools Colchester were a powerful side, but on arrival at Colchester on Sunday evening we spotted they had a good number of players described by some parents poolside – “built like a brick ………..” .
Colchester won possession at the start and immediately attack the Torpedoes goal scoring first of many for their No 7. SC Torpedoes hit back with a goal from James, they then got another couple before Rufus got on the score sheet with his first goal. Colchester used their power to score three more despite some excellent defending from Kirsty and Pheobe’s excellent goal keeping. So 6-2 down at the end of the 1st.
Into the second, Colchester continued to dominate scoring 4 more with only one in reply from Robert for torpedoes. 11-3 down.
After the break Colchester rested a couple of their “leviathans”, this gave the SC Torpedoes players more time and space to play some really good attacking water polo resulting in 3 goals for James and 2 for Rufus with only one in reply from Colchester. That had narrowed the score to 12-8. Only 4 goals in it.
Realising Torpedoes were getting the upper hand, the leviathans were put back into the water and they forced two more goals before the end of the quarter ending finishng 14-8.
Final quarter Colchesters domination continued adding 5 more goals to score line with game finishing 19-8.
Well done to all our players all gave 110% but again the victory eluded them. So that is for competitive matches now for summer, the next match for U15s is 27 Sept at Crown Pools against Bishops Storford.
SC Torpedoes Team – Pheobe Vale, Robert Johnson, Kirsty Logan, Jess Temple, Nathan Griggs, Andy Perry, James Leney, Brooke Flower, Rufus Church, Billy Vale, Faye Hermon
SC Torpedoes Goal Scorers – James x 4, Rufus x 3, Robert x 1.
East Region withdraws from Girls Inter-Regional Championship
Please see message from Chris Stephens “I am very sorry to announce that East Region has withdrawn our entry from next weekend’s girls Inter-Regional Championship at Walsall. Several players have become unavailable, and I have decided not to send a young and inexperienced team who would derive little benefit from the competition.
I would like to thank all the players, parents and coaches who support our Girls development programme and I am confident we will overcome this setback.”