Inter Bay Water Polo Tournament #1 - 29 November 2007
The inaugural tournament included swimmers from the 8.15 and 9.00 groups, joining together to play against the other Bays. Botany Bay were unfortunately low on numbers, so we took the executive decision to add a couple of extra swimmers to ease the burden.
Joss Bay - Danielle Aspital (team Captain), Robert Campbell, George Hammocks, Alex Hollett, Lucy Kear, Madeleine Kear, Sid Lever, Josh Tilbury
Viking Bay - Beth Campbell, Dave Campbell, Dominic Campbell (Vice Captain), Isabel English, Olivia English, Adele Lamb, Amy Little, Jack Pike, Alice Price, Lily Price, Amie Selby, Alex Tuddenham, Ant Tuddenham (Captain), Bronwyn Tuddenham
Stone Bay - Grace Andrews, Isabella Drake, Jon Drake (Vice Captain), Charlie Gambrill, Chloe Gambrill, Haydn Gray, Ethan Highsted, Ben Mays, Emily Mays, George Parsons, Liam Smith, Oliver StJohn Jeffrey, Edie Webster, Sophie White (Captain)
Botany Bay - Lara Barnett, Jack Basson (Vice Captain), Ben New, Cameron Pond, James Preston (Captain), Lewis Winch (Darren Gambrill and Louise Sweeney on free transfer for the evening)
First Round
The players from all Bays took a couple of games to get going and to start playing as teams and using tactics! Games in this round were 2 halves of 5 minutes.
Joss 2 Viking 5 (sorry no scorers noted)
Stone 3 (no scorers noted for Stone - soz!) Botany 4 (Jack Basson, Darren Gambrill, James Preston)
Second Round
The games here started to get faster and more interesting to watch! We adapted the games to just 5 minutes to keep everyone moving and to try to stay on target with the finish time.
Joss 0 Stone 3 - (Sophie White, Jon Drake 2)
Viking 2 (A Tuddenham, Bronwyn Tuddenham) Botany 1 (Jack Basson)
Third Round
Suffice to say that there was plenty of passing and movement in this round!
Joss 0 Botany 4 (Jack Basson 3, Cameron Pond)
Viking 2 (Ant Tuddenham, Alex Tuddenham) Stone 2 (Jon Drake)
At this stage we added up the total goals and reviewed the time. Bottom two scoring teams should play off for 3rd place, top 2 should play off for winner. The scores added up to Joss 2, Stone 8, Botany 9 and Viking ...... 9
Due to time constraints, we skipped the 3rd place playoff and played a 5 minute game to find the winner. What a match!
Final
The Viking and Botany teams lined up along their goal lines and once the whistle went, there was some fast and intelligent play by both teams. Passing was good, the pace was constant and the Captains made sure that everyone was involved. Remember that Botany had been at a disadvantage as their numbers were significantly lower that the other teams, so had had to play more.
Dave Campbell put the first one in the net for Viking, then Jack Basson replied with a strong shot into the corner of the net to bring Botany level. Ant Tuddenham put a screaming shot at goal, finding the mark again for Viking. Botany were not going to give up without a fight and Jack Basson again shot on target to bring the teams level at 2-2 with just 1 MINUTE TO GO! Both teams gave their all but Viking managed to put another one in the net courtesy of Ant, just before the final whistle.
Phew, what a game and what a tournament! It certainly got faster towards the end!
Well done to the Bay Captains who made sure that the rolling subs were used and that everyone who wanted a game, got a game.
Congratulations to Viking Bay for winning the competition, but look out - the others will be after you in March!
