Twelve of Soton’s finest rocked up to Winchester for the second game of the season, a friendly vs Soton City B side. We rocked up excited to play a good game in a lovely pool without the pressure of high stakes, despite Alex’s claims of winnability.
After a cheeky little paddle in the warm-up pool, eyeing up the city team that we had expected to be a combo of OAPs and 16 year olds, which was in fact sadly more a team of some A-side players with a few teens mixed in.
Despite this minor disappointment we charged on into the 1st quarter.
We lined up in what would be very close to the seasons full starting seven (sans Dalton) and got underway, and then conceded 15 seconds later thanks to a penalty given by the lovely Mr Ammon.
Unshaken, we retorted immediately, with El Capitano slotting a pen, and Mr Ammon making up for earlier errors by scoring on the man-up. The quarter showed no signs of slowing down, much to my dismay on the wings, as city replied with 2 goals, Matt bagged one and then city another leaving us 4-3 down at the end of the 1st quarter. A very good quarter of polo but rather too much swimming in my humble opinion.
The subs rolled in for the 2nd quarter, which showed no signs of slowing down as our beautiful fixtures sec put one in, only for the most handsome man in the club to get himself excluded and very much confuse himself in the process which City sadly made the most of. Two more goals from City followed before the debutant Mr JJ made the most of some confusion and netted himself a spicy one. He then proceeded to get himself excluded, because why swim when you can just try and stop them, and city put the score up to 8-5 with four seconds to go.
Despite feeling lightheaded and dizzy and promising to only play in the first corner, our glorious leader dove back into the pool for the third quarter. We probably should have tried to stop him but at this point we were all shattered and a subs a sub. He made his presence know nice and quickly turning the Greek bod that had no business on a B-team and scoring only to again, get immediately excluded – bit of a trend here chaps? The quarter contained with more insane saves from the feline Luke one of which may have been a cheeky header, and the daring pit duo Dan and Alex added another tally each. Despite some fierce defending and sprinting back, the quarter came to an end at 11-7 – a very respectable scoreline.
The 4th quarter came in and the boys were clearly feeling very selfless, all insisting that they were happy to stay out for a few more minutes, how lovely of them to let everyone get plenty gametime. The gas tank was simply a bit empty by this point, we all just had rather too much fun over Summer apparently and despite our best efforts, city scored 5 consecutively but we just couldn’t let them have the last laugh, so Mr James decided to score a beauty of a foul with 14 seconds on the clock; exactly 13 seconds before Mr Ammon got himself wrapped – both perfectly timed.
This ended the game at 16-8, a scoreline perhaps not too representative of how the game felt, especially in the first half but definitely a great learning experience and one that will certainly help us get in Bart thwacking form for the first BUCS game.
Man of the Match – Luke Bennalick
There are many good options for this, Alex and Dan put in a hell of a shift and Jack slotted two on his debut but the correct answer just is the great Luke Bennalick, I may not have highlighted it well enough in this report but the man was on sublime form, stopping goals that looked like a certainty with ease genuinely mental game from him.
Dick of the Day – Edward Wilkes
Every man on the team gave a performance they should be proud of on the day without a doubt, so I’m giving myself this for writing this report over 2 weeks after the game despite having spent 4 days in the last week bedridden having completely forgot about this most crucial assignment – very poor form.
Mr Thomas, our beloved leader, did instruct me to put himself as DotD as I’m writing this, but given that he sent that voice note rather inebriated and dressed as the red power ranger I’m choosing to ignore him. We all know the blue ranger is clear.
Goals/Majors:
Luke Bennalick 0/0
Ethan Underwood 0/0
Edward Wilkes 0/1
Finn Thomas 2/1
Dan Ammon 1/3
Jack James 2/1
Alex Wilmshurst 2/1
Sam Ellis 0/0
Qi Zhe 0/0
Matt Smith 1/0
Ben Lynch 0/2
Woody Cho 0/0
Written by Ed Wilkes
Southampton University Water Polo Club 