Under 14 Winter League Report

Under 14 London Winter League (2004 & younger)

Final Four Play Off

Whitgift School

Sunday 15th April 2018

The 2017-2018 Winter league competition concluded with an exciting play off final that took place at the excellent deep water pool at Whitgift school.

The first phase of the competition had seen the teams split into north and south divisions with the top two from each then qualifying for the final play off.

Worthing won the south division with Beckenham as runners up. Watford and Ealing qualified form the north division and both have been producing very competitive junior teams for a number of years.

The individual match reports are as follows; –

Worthing 9, Ealing 4 (H/T 3-1)

We made a relatively slow start to the competition against a strong Ealing team who possess a number of talented players including a very strong centre forward.

Eventually our tactics and speed of counter attack began to take control and Josh and Jamie were a constant threat alternating at centre forward.

Grace worked hard in defence to nullify the opposition attack but all of the squad contributed to a solid display.

Scorers; – Josh 5, Jamie 3, Henry 1

Exclusions; – Caitlin 1, Josh 1

Worthing 9, Watford 1 (H/T 7-1)

This was an excellent performance against a Watfordteam that includes a number of big and strong boys who can dominate a physical game. Our tactics worked really well and as a result Watford were unable to get the ball to their centre forward in dangerous areas and our counter attack was always a constant threat.

We dominated the first half of the match and in the second period we controlled possession for long periods. Owen produced a couple of good saves when required but this was a really dominant display against a strong team.

Scorers; – Josh 3, Caitlin 2, Mattie 2, Lucy 1, Jamie 1

Exclusions; – Josh 1, Grace 1

Worthing 9, Beckenham 1 (H/T 4-1)

Another excellent performance to end the day and once again our tactics meant that we dominated the opposition in both defence and attack. Jamie and Josh were a constant threat both on the counter attack and at centre forward and they shared the 9 goals that we scored. This though was another good all round team display with our defensive play offering the opposition only a small number of chances.

Scorers; – Jamie 5, Josh 4

Exclusions; – Jamie 1, Lucy 1, Henry 1

Squad in full; – Owen Street (g/k), Josh Luff, Mattie Smith, Jamie Bond, Henry Broadhurst, Grace Byford, Caitlin Silk, Ruby Rosser, Lucy Bullock.

As a result of the three wins we took the title which is the first London League championship that we have won for around 10 years. Without doubt, we were the best team in the competition playing with a combination of talented players and tactics that none of the teams that we played came to terms with. All of the squad made significant contributions and all of them have great potential to develop further in the coming months and years. The team was well supported by parents and friends and as always we are grateful for the efforts of our sponsor RoffeyHomes.

The

winning squad from the photo; Left to Right: Josh, Mattie, Jamie, Henry, Owen, Grace, Caitlin, Ruby, Lucy.

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Final Match Report 2017/18 BWPL Season

British Water Polo League Championship 2.

Hinckley Leisure Centre

March 18th/19th 2018

We travelled to the recently opened Hinckley leisure centre for the final two matches of the 2017/2018 season.

Throughout the campaign we have played a number of very close matches and this weekend was to be no different with both games really proving to be highly competitive. These are the individual match reports; –

Saturday 17.00

Worthing 4, Portobello 7

Quarter scores; – 3-1, 0-0, 0-5, 1-1.

This match may have ended in defeat but it was undoubtedly one our best performances of the season. Portobello went on to win the division and are a really good team that features a large number of the current Scotland squad.

We spoke at length in advance of the match that we would have to have a tactical plan to deal with the opposition centre forward who is a consistent goal scorer. We also had a slightly unusual attacking plan that we felt might work well against this opposition and this worked particularly well at the start of the match.

Our defending was so good in the first half of the match that we only conceded one goal to the highest scoring team in the league who struggled to create any chances for the centre forward. Marc was in good form dealing with a number of the shots from distance and to lead 3-1 at the half-time break illustrated how well we had played.

We lost the match in a disappointing third period when we lost our way in defence and as a result Portobello took advantage with some excellent outside shooting.

The final period was another close affair and although we had chances to reduce the deficit we missed a number of opportunities.

We never like losing games but this was a really good team performance where everyone made a contribution and it illustrated that we are capable of competing with the higher ranked teams.

Scorers; – Joao 2, George 1, Matt 1.

Exclusions; – Archy 1, George 1, Elliot 1, Joao 1, Robbie 1, Alastair 1

Sunday 10.30

Worthing 8, Cambridge 9

Quarter Scores; – 2-3, 2-3, 2-1, 2-2

This was another highly competitive match which we were desperately unlucky to lose in the final couple of minutes when George conceded a controversial penalty.

We actually had an excellent opportunity to equalize in the last 30 seconds of the match when Cambridge had a player excluded but the opposition goal keeper made the save that condemned us to a defeat by the narrowest of margins.

To be fair, we didn’t play badly but we never quite found the level of performance that we had produced on the previous day. A few unforced errors crept into our play and we were also penalized by the referees with a number of attacking reversals which were not always easy to understand. We didn’t play badly but all the squad realized that if we had played in a similar way to the previous day against Portobello we probably would have won the match relatively comfortably

Scorers; – George 3, Ben 2, Joao 2, Matt 1

Exclusions; – George 1, Joao 1, Toby 1, Akos 1, Matt 1, Alastair 1

Squad in full; – Marc Guimera (g/k), Archy Burnell, George Wood, Ben Curtis, Elliot Hurst, Joao Martins, Toby Underwood, Robbie Scott, Jacob Nash, Akos Hausknecht, Matt White, Alastair Hardinge.

L-R, Elliot, Jacob, Matt, Ben, George, Archy, Akos, Marc, Joao, Toby, Robbie, Alastair Roberts, Alastair Hardinge.