With the end of term in sight, Southampton’s biggest of boys were looking for a calm, whimsical and low-stakes game of polo. Obviously, these are 3 words that are never used in the same sentence as water polo and so they were about to be severely disappointed. 

Excited for a game against unfamiliar opponents, the starting 7 took their marks. 20 seconds into the match Daniel Ammon opted for the strategy of putting the fear of God into our enemies’ eyes and secured a lovely major (are you even playing polo if you aren’t aiming to get wrapped in the first quarter?). Rather fortunately this did not disadvantage the boys as they were able to win back the ball and oh. Never mind, Swansea scored two consecutive goals anyway. Determined for payback, Noah was quick to exclude himself, intimidating the opposition into not scoring for the duration of the quarter. 

Keeping up with the pressure from the previous quarter, Wilkes won himself an exclusion. An admirable sacrifice unfortunately resulting in the concession of a goal, moving the score to 0-3 (if you’re delusional you can pretend we’re winning). Our handsome social sec was not having this and fought for his second exclusion in 2 minutes. Upon this he must have realised he actually enjoyed staying in the match and was on his best behaviour afterwards. With the quarter coming to a close and the Southampton lads yet to score, Sam Dalton decided it was time to get the ball rolling, or rather flying. Flying into the net. Man’s arm is deadly; if I were the goalie, I’d rather just put the ball in myself. Rent was due from fresher JJ and an exquisite pass from Mr Ammon made sure he delivered a beautiful shot into the back of Swansea’s net, bringing the score up to 2-4. 

Our third quarter was off to a rocky start with Ammon tallying up another exclusion and Swansea following through with more goals. In noble attempts to foil Swansea’s consistent counters, Alex and Jack pulled a popular water polo tactic which involves blatantly grabbing the arm of whoever is holding the ball and acting surprised when the penalty is called. Unfortunately, this bold move led to 2 further goals as it turns out Swansea’s 11 was simply not interested in having a staring contest with Luke from the penalty line. This ended the quarter 2-10 (We can just ratio this to 1-5 which seems a tad better in my opinion). 

After a slightly undesirable 3^rd quarter, the boys were ready to up their defensive game which they did incredibly. So much so I have approximately 3 events to go off in the final quarter. An unfortunate exclusion of Noah led to the defensive 4:2 setup which everyone on the team has grown to love so much. Luckily, the phrase “HANDS!” has been traumatically ingrained into each player’s head and so they were able to turn the man-down around and steal possession. Swiftly following this, Dalton found himself face to face with Swansea’s keeper again and because tis’ the season, generously left the ball behind their goal line. In the final minute of the game, Luke was adamant to leave their 4^th quarter goal column empty and successfully defended against a last-ditch penalty.  

Despite the loss, the boys put in a hell of an effort, and it definitely showed by the final quarter where they were able to defend perfectly (first 3 quarters never count in a match anyway). 

The final score was 10 – 3 for Swansea.

Man of the match – Daniel Ammon, anyone that committed to getting an exclusion that quick in the match has my undying respect. Amazing offensive efforts all game and that beautiful assist with yours truly so I may be biased. 

Dick of the day – Jack for procrastinating writing this for over a month. Writer’s blues?  

Goals/Majors: 

Luke Bennalick: 0/0 

Michael Scott: 0/0 

Ed Wilkes: 0/2 

Til Jordan: 0/0 

Noah Boelmann: 0/2 

Sam Dalton: 2/1 

Dan Ammon: 0/2 

Jack James: 1/1 

Alex Wilmshurst: 0/1 

George Lea: 0/0 

Written by Jack James