Monday 26th June saw 8 mighty Narwhals take to the pool for the first time in a month against Croydon 2’s. Seeing the dubious team selection from our opposition, we expected another heavy defeat – which may have played slightly into our favour, providing a relaxed approach to the first few quarters.
The first quarter started rather confusingly, with the table being cunningly moved to the other side of the pool, and so the ball was put in on the other side too. This meant that those sneaky left handers who try to avoid the swim off had to actually swim for the ball. Not wanting to break with tradition, we promptly lost that contest… We kept Croydon in reach at all times never letting them get more than one goal ahead. Highlight of the quarter was a swift counter attack where Ed “missing in Portugal” Gamble broke away and played a delightful lobbed “pass” off the far post into the path of Nick “blind man” Shute, who promptly fumbled the ball into the goal.
The second quarter was delightful as we successfully shut the opposition out and managed to grab a goal ourselves, bringing the half-time score to 3-3. We worked hard on the drop and limited the opposition from distance. It was an example of where when we work hard, we can be defensively solid.
We then went into the second half of the game and tiredness eventually caught up with us. As we became slower with our press and our drop broke down, Croydon eventually found their range and grabbed a couple of goals from 7-8m which Finchy was unable to keep out. We didn’t manage to grab a goal in the 3rd quarter and we slipped to 7-3 down.
The 4th quarter saw us make the terrible tactical decision to let Matt “stamina” Finch out of goal. To be clear, there is no correlation between Matt coming out of goal and the team conceding 7 goals. Absolutely no correlation at all. The quarter didn’t start well, with Gary “bad hips” Bowen forgetting he was supposed to save the shots, allowing the ball to fly over his head. That being said, we did then proceed to score 4 goals in the quarter. Shame on whoever let Finchy score… Having spent the game being held, pulled and niggled, Rob “NHS” Loveless started to get a little stroppy. Realising he wasn’t getting anything from the referees, he correctly identified a wobble was imminent and quickly took himself out to cool off. Thirty seconds later he got back in and showed the Croydon boys who was boss with a lovely backhand shot into the bottom corner. He promptly won moment of the match – wobble well and truly avoided!!
Rob also won man of the match for managing to avoid the woodwork and bagging himself 4 goals. Seems all that Kingpin practise worked out. Loveless was in the running for a triple crown, with two fluffer votes for his mini wobble – but he was nudged out by Gary “lobbed from 10m” Bowen who was (as is probably clear) lobbed from 10m in the final second of the game. Shhaaaaammmeee!! Shhaaaaammeee!!
Ed “Lisbon” Gamble and Zac “Porto” Finch are still missing and the police aren’t worried. Gamble claims two excellent assists but no one cares.
Forza Narwhali!!