Sorry for the delay on the stats, I have been somewhat busy!! This report brings you two weeks worth of “action” and games that really showed the ying and yang of Narwhals Water Polo. Stats are below:
Thursday 20th April saw the Narwhals head to Hammersmith to play London Otter. Fuelled by a pre-game Nando’s and a cheeky McFlurry we felt ready for the task – even Bedford being grumpy didn’t stop us!! More importantly we did not lose a team member due to Phil showing off his Big Tasty… but arriving at the pool we felt slightly deflated. The opposition had been warming up for 20mins already and we were facing the prospect of playing in a shallow end with “home” refs. Nonetheless, we prepared ourselves for the task at hand and quite frankly put in the best half of polo we have played in a very long time.
We threatened with the ball, we made attacking swims and we played a drop defence better than we had for a long time. By the end of the half we were 10-3 up, with a particularly fine 7-0 2nd quarter win. Unfortunately that was our Ying… the Yang now came to the fore. The opposition realised they were under the cosh, and decided to full press us. Hampered by a lack of subs and a very attritional and physical opposition, we struggled to defend our lead. Indeed, we failed to score in the whole of the second half. Even so, we did hang on to a 10-10 draw – which for all intents and purposes was a very good result against a very good team. It is just a shame we couldn’t turn our first half form into a win.
Man of the Match was awarded to Dan “weak wrists” Bedford on his return to the side. He scored some ok lobs and put in a reasonable shift – the highlight of which was getting an opposition player excluded for shouting too loudly… Moment was unanimously awarded to the entire team for that wonderful 2nd quarter, whilst Fluffer was awarded to the entire team for the entire 2nd half. The first game in a while Rob managed to avoid that prestigious award…
Wednesday 26th saw a cobbled team come together to play a strong Croydon 2’s side. So desperate for players were we that we forced Tadija “Brave Little Soldier” Popovic (Big Tony) to come out of recovery early and splash around for us. What could have been a great game was severely hampered by the fact that six Narwhals were arrested pre-game and deported to Portugal. That left only Nick “Four Eyes” Shute, Andy “can’t vote, won’t vote” Ogg and Ed “weeble wobble” Gamble to face the Amphibs on their own. It was a struggle and we sadly slipped to an 18-4 defeat. Our hard work undone by a team of young swimmers (cheating surely…).
Voting from this game was marred in controversy as 4 voters has suspiciously similar votes leading to claims of collusion and vote fixing. Sadly for the individuals in question, their cheating has led to the first triple crown of the year, and possibly to the worst person!! Man of the Match went to Ed “Hero” Gamble for grabbing a great goal and providing some excellent assists. Moment was shared between Gary “missing” Bowen (for a superb reaction save), Andy “casual 7.5k” Ogg (for a box to box swim) and Ed “that guy” Gamble for some outrageously great play. Finally Fluffer went to Ed “he started it” Gamble for getting the only major of the match – an exclusion following a minor handbag event with the opposition. The first triple crown for Gimli – a superb result!! In other news, Matt “but it was a lovely turn” Finch came out of goal again and once more failed to get on the match sheet. Recent reports suggest he is in a Portuguese prison cell being bored to tears by Sponge Rob Poo Pants talking about audit…
Until next time – Forza narwhali!!!