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Water Polo Report
Women’s Water Polo Report
We finished off the end of the 2006-07 National League 8th in the division. We took a year out of Local League as numbers were such that we were unsure whether we would be able to fulfil all of our fixtures. This was probably just as well as a couple of players were out for a few months through broken fingers (one polo related).
However during the year the numbers of players has increased a fair bit so we are all ready for the local league games to come after Christmas. So far the 2007-08 National League hasn’t been very fruitful. After completing 4 weekends, and 12 games, we have only managed 1 point on the table, which places us just above Sunderland. Nevertheless the performances of the girls in some of the games have been brilliant. Especially at the most recent weekend in Basingstoke where, although, they lost 9-16 to Invicta, they won the last quarter 5-2. The way the coach was jumping about in the last quarter anybody would have thought they’d won the whole game, not just that quarter. We have 4 more games left to complete the season, and with the way the girls are constantly improving they can hopefully obtain a few more points.
A mention goes to Kat Kabala who is now working down at Plymouth, but still has managed to make all the National League weekends so far. Also a welcome back to Jules Hassall, who was away for part of last year travelling, and thanks for taking over quite a bit of the organisation, to give me a bit of a break. Finally congratulations go to Sarah Guilford who recently got married, and also to Emma Bolton who is busy growing a future swimmer for the club.
Michelle Jenkins
Men’s Water Polo Report
As one of the leading water polo teams in Britain, Central has continued to make progress in both developing top level players and competing successfully in high level competition.
Our 2nd team continue to compete successfully in the local league 2nd division. This season saw once again many younger players improve their play and although we finished mid-table, the improvement was considerable and the 1st team is enjoying some of these benefits with players progressing into this team.
In February, the 1st team failed to progress into the British Championship finals weekend, mainly due to unavailability of key players. The preliminary group which we competed in saw us lose out to Lancaster and Welsh Wanderers, we did beat Rotherham who incidentally lost in the final of the competition.
In April we entered the ASA Senior cup and defeated W. London Penguin in the Qtr final at the University. We then travelled to Leeds to play Rotherham and were beaten by them 16 – 11 in the semi final.
July saw the 1st team organise a pre-season tournament in advance of the National League. We won all 4 matches V Welsh Wanderers & W. London Penguin and also enjoyed good support. We hope to repeat this event in ’08 and use it as a fund raising event.
The Bristol & West league for the `1st team was somewhat curtailed this year due to Cheltenham’s lack of pool availability due to flooding. 2 high scoring victories against Welsh Wanderers ensured we retained the Division 1 trophy.
In October Central travelled to Barcelona to compete in the LEN Trophy as Britain’s representative in this prestigious competition. We competed against Barcelona , Voulaegmeni & Noisy Le Sec – Paris .These teams are professional and train many more hours per week than ourselves and although we lost all 3 games, the standard of play by the team was exceptional.
The National League began in September and is still continuing until Mid December. Central, with 3 games to go have for the first time in a few years a real chance to win the league and are currently placed in 2nd position. The next match is against Cheltenham on December 1st at Millfield School and this could decide the title.
Once again Central players featured in the National Squad . Craig Figes as captain and Matt Thresher are now Key Players in the Great Britain national team, and represented the country in the European Nations Trophy in Manchester in July. The team gained 6th place which is a huge improvement on previous years. They both now train full time in Manchester as part of the programme to compete in the 2012 Olympic games.
Andy Crawford joined Matt Thresher in the Great Britain Student games team in Thailand for the World Student Games. Although the team performed well, other results went against them and they were placed in the lower half of the competition.
The Junior team competed in the National ASA Cup for the 1st time in a number of years and performed excellently, winning through to the final, where they were eventually beaten. We brought in a couple of players from other local teams to bolster our juniors, but the Bristol Central players excelled at all stages of the competition. Getting a consistent level of competition for our junior team is now major goal for the coming year.
Stuart Fennell has made great progress again this year and made the Youth GB squad. Justin Beardon only just missed out as goalkeeper. Finn Taylor, Jack Lomax and Jake Probert have all been accepted into the regional training centres in their age groups.
A big thank you is due to all the coaches of the juniors, Gregory Harper, John Sissons, Craig Figes and Rhys Tamlyn, for these achievements.
Rhys Tamlyn/John Sissons
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