This year’s U-Polo tournament continued on Monday, with us playing against UWE. This was our first away game for the academic year and we only managed to have a team of 9, as many couldn’t make it due to obligations (university related or other).

Having a small number of players and playing against a team (13 people) that was coached by the Team GB’s water polo captain, we were expecting a very competitive game.

As the first quarter began, we saw many weaknesses in the opposition’s game but we didn’t manage to take advantage of them; we only scored two goals in this quarter. At the same time some mistakes from our side in defence led to two goals being conceded. The final score for the first quarter, after some very controversial refereeing, was a surprising 2-2.

The refereeing continued to be clearly biased for the whole game, but the Stags were determined to dominate. Collectively, in the next three quarters our squad (9! players) managed to take the upper hand on the game and display how water polo is played. During our attacks we managed to set up the arc quickly, move the ball effectively around and score by either passing the ball in the pit or by taking wonderful shots from the arc. If we were pressed we would take the foul and then play sensibly. Equally effective were our man up where our effectiveness was 100% if I remember correctly. With our fitness and experience we managed to break on them multiple times and score on the counter-attack.

In total we scored 21 goals from the second quarter till the end of the game (7 goals per quarter). While Ben (goalie), with the help of the defence, kept a clean sheet, using his face to stop the ball instead of his hands! The final score of the game was 23-2.

It is worth mentioning that Nick Tankov managed to send the ball into orbit with one of his shots, under no pressure and that one of the UWE players was wrapped because he elbowed on purpose one of the Greek boys (Panos) in the face. One more good game for our team, hoping many more to come!

Scorers:
9 – Panos Logothetis
6 – Will Logothetis
4 – Josh Rowland
3 – Will Divall
1 – Connor Hogg