London International

The weekend of the 11^th & 12^th August saw the London International Canoe Polo Tournament in Danson Park, and Cardiff entered a team into the third division (of four).

Andy Francis, who normally writes for Polo The Consequences, couldn’t play this tournament, as he was watching the Olympic Canoe Sprint finals, so I (Rob Haley of Kayak The Consequences fame) will be writing this post. My style is a little more blunt than Andy’s, but as he is the lead of this section of the Stuff The Consequences team I will endeavour to ensure my post is in keeping with his previous ones. I.e I will stick to the facts and not lower the tone too badly.

Getting out of work on the Friday afternoon, packing and loading the boats onto my Citroën Saxo Desire (Joanna); Max, Jonny and I were ready for the journey to the other side of London from Cardiff.  Getting to the M25 was relatively painless in terms of traffic, but as Joanna has no air-conditioning it was boiling inside her.  I mean the three of us were sweating more than an innocent black man defending himself in front of a white South African jury.  It was uncomfortable, and the start of the traffic on the M25 was not helping.  By the time we arrived at Danson park we were feeling the heat, but as the journey wasn’t as long as originally expected, we got the tent up and were able to get to the marquee to have a couple beers.

Jonny went to get the playlist, and following one of the Bristol Uni guys, Max and I trusted he could complete this simple task.  For everyone who hasn’t met Jonny, he has the time keeping skills of a intellectually stunted goat and little in the way of awareness of his surroundings.  So when the chap from Bristol Uni returned with his teams’ playlist, it wasn’t unexpected that Jonny was nowhere to be seen.  Luckily he turned up a while later, albeit without the playlist because apparently this was too difficult of a chore, to say when we were playing first.  A 07:30 first game; Who against, what pitch and information of the rest of the day did not come back with him.  Jonny’s brain, much like the aforementioned goat, can’t carry too much data all at once.  The idea of an early morning sucked, as I was hoping for a few drinks that evening.  So an early-ish night was decided upon, and we headed to the tent before midnight.

The morning came too quickly, and our first game was against Avon C.  Knowing the size of the Avon club, we prepared for a tough game.  To our surprise we were doing very well against them, and won the game 9-0 (I think).  This gave us a boost, and also the feeling that we may be in a division below where we should be.  But a win is a win, and I am more than happy to lay the smack down when it comes to a competition.  The following game against Manvers went to a similar tune, with another win under our belt.

Figure 1: The team mid tactic talks

With a decent break between games, we chilled out.  Jonny and I needed to work on the tans, Jonny especially as without his good looks he would be fairly screwed, and as the weather was amazing the decision to de-top was taken.  With a whole load of manliness being displayed from ourselves, lesser men seemed threatened and were quick to follow suit.  Before long there was more skin on show than a tubby girl in a tank top.

The next game was against Liverpool, and both Jonny and myself required the use of the facilities.  Unfortunately we hadn’t factored queuing time into this, and I was late to get onto the pitch, arriving when we were 1-0 down.  Luckily, when we were back to full strength, Cardiff managed to get into form and make the most of the previous two games practice to score some more goals.  Liverpool weren’t exactly finely tuned in ability, but they hit hard and weren’t afraid of putting everything they had into the game.  However the final score was something along the lines of 3-2 to Cardiff.  This meant that if we beat St. Albans Ladies in our last pool game, we would be top of the pool and have another game on the Saturday evening.

So we geared up for the final pool game.  Now you may have read St. Albans Ladies and thought that surely this couldn’t be the hardest of games, but when it comes to canoe polo the ladies can be just as quick and skilled as the men.  This proved even more true on the pitch, when the scores were close.  For some reason there was one bloke on their team, and none of us could really understand his place on a ladies side, but he was a tasty player.  I assume that he was some sort of tool used to stop all of the girls’ periods syncing and screwing up their chances.  The game was hard fought, and unfortunately Cardiff lost relatively convincingly.  I know Figure 2 shows them shooting against Canada, but it was similar to them shooting against us.

Figure 2: St. Albans Ladies shooting

This sucked as it meant a 08:00 start on the Sunday instead of another Saturday evening game and a lay-in on Sunday.  However I had already set my sights on having a few drinks that evening, so this small blip in the plan wouldn’t change that.

That evening we hit up a pub then curry house, which was very pleasant (although not on my diet plan), and had a few drinks.  Apparently I have lost my tolerance, because after the first shandy I was feeling tipsy straight away.  Having had food and getting back to the marquee, a couple more cans and the team were ready for bed.

07:00 came about too quickly, and we found out we were playing Meridian Y and Clapham that morning.  Winning both games would see us through to the Semis.  The first game against Meridian Y was tough, and we saw ourselves 5-2 down at the end of the first half.  This was bad as the team wanted to place top three so badly.  The tactic was to go into the second half and hit hard.  We played 5 out (which is basically man on man marking) and this seemed to favour us.  Scoring 5 goals in that half and not conceding a single one meant we had won our first game.  This was good.  Clapham next could see us through to the Semi-Finals!!!

Going 1-0 ahead in the first few minutes we thought it was going well.  However Clapham were on form, and the score was back to evens within minutes.  Second half saw Clapham 3-2 up, and we knew that this could be it for us.  We had to hit back, we had to score.  But nothing was coming, and the time was running out.  Somehow we got a ball into their zone (defence) and it was shot, finding its way past the keeper.  A draw, and the buzzer went.  We didn’t know what this meant, would a draw be good enough, could we get a decent Semi being low down.  Going back to base, and having a look at the playlist and score sheet, we noticed that St. Albans Ladies drew their match on the Sunday.  This was good for us, and meant that we were most definitely through to the Semis; it transpired that we came top of the group.  This meant we would play Canada Ninjas.  St. Albans Ladies would play Meridian Y.  Perfect we had the easiest team of the four, and one of the two teams we found difficult would play the other out.

Although we knew that Canada would be a hard game, it was going to be the easiest out of all the teams in the Semi-Finals.  Keeping a tight defence, we managed to hold off goals and by chasing hard and attacking in a strong and controlled manner, we won the first of our two last games.  St. Albans Ladies lost to Meridian Y, to our surprise, so it was going to be a repeat of our first game of the day.  This was it, we were in the final!

Meridian had learnt from our first game, and came out strong, scoring first.  We were chasing and this was a bad position to be in.  Somehow we evened up, but going 3-2 down in the second half and not much time to go, it looked dim.  Jonny got a break, and getting into the defence, he had a shot on.  This was it, but he hit the crossbar.  Luckily Matt was on the other side of the pitch, recovered the ball and put it in the goal.  Jonny was saved by Matt’s quick hands, and the buzzer went.  Into extra time and golden goal.  This was nerve racking.  Any mess-up and we could be out, only a silver.  We won the re-start, and were attacking the zone, but nothing was showing.  Meridian were doing well to keep us out, and stop shots being on.  We then lost the ball, this wasn’t good, didn’t want to be on the back foot in golden goal.  A Meridian player got the break; luckily Matt was covering, but went a little too vigorously into the tackle and gave away a foul.  He was lucky to not get carded, but this gave us time to get back into zone.  We kept a strong defence, and as Meridian did before us, kept them away from a shooting position.  The first period of extra time was up, and swapping ends showed people were tired.  We couldn’t play the same tactics we did in the first game against Meridian as they were faster than us and had learnt what we were doing in the game before.  At the re-start, I think Max was sprinting, and was fouled.  This was good, for two reasons.  Firstly I always enjoy when Max is the subject of a foul, not because he plays up or anything like that, I just like seeing him getting fouled.  Secondly we had the ball.  A quick transition back into play and we were hitting their defense.  This was it, we were making gains and seeing the signs of a weak defence.  I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but a shot opportunity showed itself, and I believe Jonny took it and we had it.  The gold was ours!

The team was ecstatic; London International and we came top of our division.  Getting changed and packing the car ready for the prize giving, we were elated.  During the prize giving, the Mayor of Bexleyheath (at least I assume that is what he was) was giving out the trophies.  We go up, shake his hand, but no gold medal.  Just a photo and a glass plaque.  Both of them were very nice, but I really wanted a medal to rub in other peoples faces.  I quickly got over this though, as a win is a win, and that will do.

Figure 3: The team and our plaque

The journey back to Cardiff was painless, and quicker than the one down to London.  When we were about 10 minutes from Cardiff, Jonny remembered that he had to somehow get home to Penarth that evening.  I don’t know how it had only just occurred to him, but he looked up the train times, and the final train for him was in 10 minutes.  This was gonna be tight.  He really is poor at planning that boy.  Luckily Max and myself managed to direct ourselves the best way through the traffic, as Jonny’s decision making skills were as useful as his time keeping skills, and we got him on his train, to leave the both of us with putting boats away.

I hope you enjoyed the post, and be sure to check out Stuff The Consequences if you liked what you read by myself.

 
Figure 4: (a) A competition polo ball     (b) A weighted polo ball for training

Welsh Open!

Being the Welsh Open, you would have expected Cardiff Canoe Polo Club to play a larger role in the organisation of the tournament, but (and I speak only for myself) we are all pretty lazy and having to organise anything is way too much effort.  We have shown our support though, and entered at least one team in the tournament since the club was formed in 2007, and to be honest, our track record in the tournament isn’t too great.  Last year I made the mistake of playing with the B team and we got beaten by the GB under 21 girls about 10-1.  This year we entered the A team entered (plus an Aberfan ringer) in Division 1, and Cardiff Uni Kayakers entered a team in Division 2.  The team was: Tim Williams, Elan Winter, Dave Morgan, Rob Haley, Matt Jenkins and Andy Francis (me).  Stronger than our normal national league team, makes me wish were a bit better normally!

In the past few years, the Welsh Open has moved about a bit, mostly moving around Cardiff Bay from the Graving Dock to the Cardiff International White Water Centre, which has been amazing for us as it has always meant a 10 minute drive and a nice bed for the night… but this year the organisers (Bridgend Canoe Club) decided to hold it a bit closer to their homes, in the North Dock in Llanelli.  This is still only a 50 minute drive for us, but for every other team coming from around the UK, its 50 minutes on top of a 3/4hr journey!  Ahh well, apparently there is no distance too far for polo!  It also led to the decision about whether to camp or drive each morning.  Luckily my decision was made for me as I was able to stay in a house on the Gower, about 15 minutes from the docks.

The biggest issue I heard from the weekend was from the camp site.  Luckily I was not at it, but when I arrived early Saturday morning it didn’t take long for the complaints to start.  Seagulls.  The little bastards kept everyone up all night!  At least our team was in a van and able to move it for the second night!  I also heard that the bacon rolls only had one rasher in them... Bacon rolls should have more than one rasher in them!  More bacon is always better.

We were in Division 1, which looks like this:

Group A:
Dragon
Nomad A
Avon Y
Cherwell A
Team Canada

Group B:
Kingston A
Meridian D
Avon X
FOA Z
Cardiff CC

After being told to arrive at 9, and getting there early, I was fairly unimpressed to find out our first game wasn’t until 10.30.  Bloody Rob the trickster.  An hour and a half later and we were playing Kingston.  I think they must have the same first game syndrome that we have (where you don’t play very well in their first game) as they seemed to struggle against us.  It ended up in 3-2 loss, but seeing as Elan thought it was going to be about 5-1 I think we can be fairly happy with it!

Next up we were playing FOA, a young team of Scousers…  We ended up with a fairly comfortable 6-3 win which helped to boost confidence after the first lost.

Our third game was against Avon.  We play them quite a lot, pretty much every tournament and in most leagues.  After a hard fought game we ended up winning 3-2.  A last minute goal to get the win!

Our last group game was with Meridian.  Looking at the team it looked like a ULU old boys team!  We walked away with a 6-0 win.

Fairly brief descriptions, but I've pretty much forgotten what happened in the games!  Three wins and one loss saw us into 2nd in our group, with Kingston winning.  In pool A, Dragon won all their games, Avon Y narrowly piped Nomad for 2^nd and the Cherwell and Team Canada were 4^th and 5^th.

The way the tournament was set up was weird, 3^rd to 5^th in each group went into two new pools, C and D.  The winner of these pools got to play 1^st place in group A and B for a place in the semi finals.  The other two semi final spots were for 2^nd place in group A and B.  2^nd in group A played 2^nd in group B, with the losers playing the winner of 1^st C vs 1^st A and the winners playing winner of 1^st D vs 1^st B :-/ Confused much?  I tried drawing it, but I couldn’t.  What mattered was that coming 2nd in the group meant we were guaranteed to be in the semi-final, whereas winning the group gave you the opportunity to lose before the final!  This would all be decided on day 2.

We had a chat to some of the students to find out how they were getting on, and it turns out not so well… they lost all their games, some in spectacular fashion!

We met up with a couple of Cardiff Uni Old Boys on the Saturday evening, drove around with a boy in the boot of the car and went for some celebration food and I called it a night. 

We were playing Avon Y at 8.30am in the most important match of the day… The winner would more than likely play Kingston in semi-final 1, whereas the loser would most definitely be playing Dragon in semi-final 2.  Predictably we were awful, and our bad play and rubbish tactics meant we lost 3-2.  We should have been more ruthless and played 5-out and pressured their weaker players, but we tried to be more defensive and ended up conceding a last minute goal with 3 seconds left… the buzzer went as the ball was still in the net! 

Our semi-final, against Dragon, wasn’t until much later so in the short but sweet spells of sunshine we took the opportunity to tan up as much as we could!  We played Dragon full of optimism, and this lasted all of 30s before we started conceding the inevitable goal after goal after goal… I think we ended up with a 6-0 loss.  There were some positives though, most of their goals were from breaks, and we didn’t let many in from open play!  But we got spanked.

In the other semi-final, Kingston made it difficult for themselves, but they did manage to beat Avon Y to make the final.  This meant we had our bronze medal match against Avon Y, a repeat of the morning match.  We played more 5-out against them and it paid off as we took an early lead.  But we got sloppy and allowed them back into the game and at 2-2 I was a bit worried we would lose the same way we did in the first game.  In a brilliant twist of fate we got the last minute goal and claimed our bronze medals!

Dragon went on to win the final, but to be fair to Kingston they put up a much better effort than we did!  We also found out that the Uni lost all of their games and came bottom of their league.   

And I also made a cool gif of the final sprint.