By Tim McMahon

The men’s firsts opened their BUCS campaign with a comprehensive win over Bath University. With only eight keen beans the firsts played some quality polo, despite some questionable fitness.

The drama began early with Super Keen (Anton) sprinting home to fetch the “pussy wagon” because Andrea had a flat tyre; even though both Divall and BK had their cars in the car park. Charlie was also keen, giving us four and a half hours to make the trip north.

Reaching Bath campus (not being sure if Anton’s half were dead or alive) we could only marvel at the extensive sporting facilities, the twenty lifting racks in the gym (Perry’s dream come true) and the protein menu in the café. After Charlie had consumed a baked potato and tuna and the other half of the team arrived we had a brief tactics session before walking past the horde of Bath players to the changing rooms.

After a brief warm up and the Bath captain checked were all belonged to Southampton uni the match finally got underway at 5pm, with past comrades Amy and Roger the officials. The first quarter started well with Southampton going 3-0 up thanks to two goals from Charlie and one form Anton with no response from Bath.

As the second quarter began, it became clear that the Bath players’ fitness was slightly better than ours, alongside the fact that they had brought six subs. However, the Southampton quality shone through as Divall and Anton both netted, giving us a 5-0 lead. This was due to some stunning saves from Andrea who the Bath players must have hated. With the half time break, we realise we would have to slow the game down to prevent death, let alone defeat.

With our new tactics in place, the third quarter commenced and we continued to dominate the game. Timye bravely took up the goalie position to give Bath a taste of Italian fury (Andrea if there was any doubt). Perry scored a cheeky goal before Bath finally broke their duck with a shot I’m sure even Andrea wouldn’t have saved (maybe…). As we tired, the game descended into madness our team opting of a three attack while three stay back to conserve energy. The quarter ended 7-2 with a goal from Andrea, with Divall preventing further damage with an unbelievable goal line save (so I’m told).

The final quarter started with Andrea back in his rightful place between the sticks. We tactically decided not to contend for the ball at the swim off and played a deep defence, forcing Bath to play rather than rely on swimming ability. The game now became quite scrappy with the Bath players clearly frustrated at our dominance, with two goals from Divall and one from BKS adding insult to injury. The final whistle blew with the score at 10-2 to Southampton to cap off a quality performance and a clean sheet for Andrea.

We celebrated our victory with a well-deserved Maccies where a local shouted at us asked who would “man up and fight him”. Shout out to the eight Spartans who over-came the Bath army.

MAN OF THE MATCH: ANDREA RICCI

GOALS

WILL DIVALL 3

CHARLIE ROBERTS 2

ANTON STEPHAN 2

BKS 1

ANDREA RICCI 1

ALEX PERRY 1

MAJORS

CHARLIE ROBERTS 2

ANTON STEPHAN 2