South West Division 2

Sunday 3^rd February was South West League Division 2, and unfortunately I have to write a post about it. Don’t worry, if you feel like you’ve gone as far as you can with this one already I wouldn’t judge you for leaving.

So it was a polo tournament, and the worst part of it was that my alarm was set for 0640. It went off this morning (Sunday) and I had this impending thought that it was Monday and that I had work. When I realised I was waking up for polo the thought transformed into a nightmare. I got a lift to Milfield School, which is the venue for the competition, with Phil. Now this school is something else, the grounds are huge and the pool is amazing. However there are creepy photos of the kids in the pool area; these photos are arty and look as though the photographer is chucking buckets of water around. Real weird.

The team I was playing for was Cardiff B, and we were playing a couple Bristol teams, a Bath team and then a couple teams that call themselves something other than where they’re from. I dunno why they do this, it’s not big and it’s not cool. It just makes them sound lame, an example being Ninja Beavers. I have Googled this however and there seems to be a significant amount of Ninja Beaver images:

Ha, a beaver wouldn't be able to tie a bandanna around it's head 

 So, the polo;

 Well this happened,

And then this, although this one is a foul

This chap reached for the ball, he may or may not have eventually got it.

This guy swam. If you played canoe polo you would know that this is embarrassing.

This is just a arty photo to spruce up the post

As for Cardiff; we won 2, drew 2 and lost one. However the one we lost was a scratch game, so in reality we won that one 3-0; isn't that exciting?

I would say that I hoped you enjoyed the post, but it would be comparable to asking someone who had just paid to see The Hobbit in the cinema whether they enjoyed that. They clearly wouldn't have, and the icing on the cake would have been the extraordinarily expensive ticket prices that cinemas seem to charge now-a-days.

Welsh League Div 1 - Second day

Today was the second Welsh League Division 1 day competition in Newport pool, and Cardiff had 2 teams involved. This year, as the B team was promoted, Cardiff has split its players across the two teams, so they are evenly matched. However, due to a few members other commitments, there was only 10 people in attendance. This meant each team had no substitutes. Cardiff A vs. Cardiff B was the second game of the day, and therefore we would see who the better team was. The team I (Rob Haley) was playing for consisted of Matt Creed, Matt Jenkins, Phil Stephens, Adam Voyle and myself.

This game was hard fought, and particularly close, however Cardiff A won (the team I was playing for, but I assume you already guessed that).

Our next game was Tawe, who are aggressive but we showed them who's boss. The first half we came out strong to take the lead, and by the end of the half you could tell who the superior side was. Although we reigned it in in the second half, we still won convincingly.

Our final game against Rhondda was tougher, but we still managed to get the win.

Cardiff Bs, consisting of Phil Darlington, Dave Morgan, Rif Malki, Dylan Dixon and a chap I haven’t met before; Harry Something-or-Other. This team had their second game against Bridgend. Unfortunately they lost this one also, but with the first half a draw, it looked as though it could have been a Cardiff win. Unfortunately they just fell apart in the second half.

You can see Dylan here defending the ball. (Well done Dylan, but it didn't help. You still lost)

Dave smiling here (not sure what about. if you remember, they lost this one)

They won their last game, which was the mighty Tawe.

Dylan again

This is that Harry fella. Looks like he just took a shot at goal

Phil D - lol

Now, I was having a look through some of the photo's that I was taking, and noticed I had a lot of Elan Winter (played for Aberfan, but also trains with Cardiff). I'm sure Freud would have something to say about this, but I think nothing of it. Here are some of the gems;

50 shades of Elan

Once again, an uninspiring Polo blog. Hopefully when Andy F mans up the blog will be rejuvenated. 

Welsh League - Div2- 06/01/2013

So it's the first day tournament of 2013 for Welsh League Division 2. Cardiff C's were set up to play, and got to the pool in Newport in plenty of time for the first game. However they realised one of the team members was not present. A quick phone call found him in bed with a hang over, leaving just four of them in Newport. With 20 minutes until their first game, albeit Cardiff Uni, this was not looking good for them.

This is when Rob Haley of Stuff The Consequences fame gets the call! It's basically the same as when Jim Gordan, from the recent Batman trilogy, lights up the Batman floodlight; Jim needed a hero to save the day, and so did the Cardiff team. Luckily for them I have nothing to do on my weekends (and I told Adam Voyle that I would play), so I was free as a bird. However I don't have roofracks for my car (Joanna), the reason for which is discussed here, so it was to fit a 3m polo boat in a 1.1 Citroen Saxo; Luckily I am an Engineer, making this child's play.

I turned up to the pool after Cardiff C's beat the Uni 7-3, so was a good start for them. The next Game was the better of the two Bridgend teams we were to meet. This game unfortunately didn't go as well as their first game. It seems that I was not much of a hero, but more of a drag leading to a loss. However the following game against Breacon was a convincing 9-0 victory for Cardiff. With the final game against the second Bridgend team, it was on. We came out victorious, with a scoreless first half, and an exciting second to see the score in the realm of 4-2 to Cardiff.

So overall 3 wins and 1 loss is a solid day. Now here are some photos taken using my new NIKKOR 55-300mm Lens, which are much more exciting that a match report!

Nice blurry background!

 

Stu of Cardiff Uni smiling (but probably not over a win!)

Zoe with her eyes closed (probably not textbook passing)

Luc looking like he may save a shot. (I will take away any suspense; the ball went in the net) 

Smiling again. Hhmmm, maybe him and Lucie had a special interlude

BlogThis!

Cardiff B's in Nationals

This year Cardiff B team has entered into the National Division 4 Canoe Polo League. So this means we're all lucky enough to have to play even more polo. Luckily I have nothing to do with the organising of this tournament, or any of the Cardiff B stuff to be fair, so all I have to do is turn up on time on the day.

Arriving at Cheltenham, which is where the tournament for the South West is held, I was actually feeling slightly excited, even though that morning I was in no way up for polo. I liken the experience to a prostate exam; even though there is a thrill and exhilaration to having a finger up the bum, pre and post finger is full of nerves and regret. I.e. Canoe Polo is fun while you're playing, but before and after it's as though you don't wanna go or you regret going.

So we got into the polo, and watched the first game. Well I say game, when you see a bunch of incompetent chumps paddling in an erratic display of cluelessness you can't really call it a game.

Chump shot 1

Luckily we were on the next game. Again I say game, I dunno what it was, possibly the fact that seeing a bad game made us play badly, but we were just as crap as the rest of the chumps in the pool. Its like the Canoe Polo association had managed to seal in a good proportion of morons, Cardiff included, but never managed to eliminate the lot through a good old terrorist-like attack. Fortunately we did win this game, although probably undeservedly.

Bridgend played after us, and as always they were actually a good team that could play well together. But our second game was against them. This really showed up how poor our polo is. Obviously we lost, mostly because we play like a rabbit in the headlights.

Chump Shot 2

Above is Meridian vs Bristol (or something like that), and our next game was against Bristol (greens). Now this turned out to probably be our best game. The first half we managed to use tactics, which is generally out of our realm. But it was working, we were 1-0 up. In the second half there was a drawing goal scored, so the decision was to play 5 out. We didn't play this very well, as man marking is not the forte for the team, but we got a goal to win the game, so a positive outcome from a good first half and scrappy second.

An actual goal

Our last game was against some team, I don't remember their name, but they weren't exactly good. And this is where my heart sinks, because we lost. (we didn't actually lose, it was a draw. But drawing to a shit team is basically losing. It's kinda like saying stalemate in chess is a draw. It isn't, in chess everyone losses, esp. in the event of a draw)

So that sums up a pretty crappy set of games by Cardiff B's. Hopefully we'll learn from this and actually try in the next comp.

Till then...

First South West

Sunday 23^rd September saw the first day of the South West division for Cardiff Canoe Polo Club this season. With Andy Francis dislocating his arm at the last competition I have yet again had to write for Polo The Consequences. I very much hope this doesn’t become an ongoing theme, as I am not overly keen for the polo discipline, and obviously I hope Andy gets better or whatever. However, as I have to put up some info on the games, it gives me the opportunity to display some photos from my new DSLR camera. There has also luckily been a Kayak The Consequences blog recently if you would like to read and watch a video.

On the Monday before the weekend, I received a phone call from Blondie, one of the A-team players, asking me to play on the Sunday. I begrudgingly agreed, even though all I wanted to do on the weekend was chill out, mostly because I didn’t have any excuse to say no.

The weather on Sunday was terrible, I really was not in the mood for polo, even though it was an indoor comp, any climatic condition doesn’t exactly make polo interesting. Then I was told we only had four players; Either we had to try and convince a B-team player to stay on from their morning games, or play a man down against teams better than us. Luckily on arrival Morgan Williams agreed to stay on, which was a gain for us and a massive call from him.

So with my new Nikon D3200 I got into my photographer mindset. Unfortunately I’m none the wiser as to what I am doing with a DSLR, so a few of the photos came out dark, and some blurred. However the majority of the blog will be photos, and mostly of the Aberfan team, due to the fact that they were playing every other game, and I couldn’t exactly photograph our team! What the team, and the blog, ideally need is a chump to come along and take photos for us, but until that happens I will be fulfilling the chump roll.

The first game we had was against Bareforrest, and they gave us a decent pasting. I would attempt to give more detail, but really when it came down to it, they just scored a lot, and we didn’t.

Avon B was second, and this was a game that we could win. Playing reasonably well in the first half, I believe we were up. Yet in the second half we were playing as though it was still a draw, and with a break on us, Avon managed to get the goal for a draw. But it didn’t stop there, with Avon getting yet another goal to take the score in their favour by one. This was a disappointing loss, as we were playing as though we should have won.

With Cherwell as our third game, we were expecting a similar defeat as we saw against Bareforrest, but in the first couple minutes we scored. We played exceptionally well in the first half, getting to half time at 2-2. This was good, but our tiredness showed in the second half, and the final score was 4-2.

By this time Morgan was showing signs of physical and emotional drainage, which after an 08:00 start and 8 games under his belt I can understand why. With Aberfan next it wasn’t as though it was going to get easier. A 7-1 loss ensued, and getting a goal against them was enough of a victory for me.

The final game was Penzance, which is one that we could actually win. We played well, but there was a distinct lack of energy in the game. I cannot remember the score, but it was a Cardiff Victory, which meant we came 5^th out of 6 during the day.

Now for some photos:

Cardiff B's rocking it

Cherwell putting on the pace

Cherwell vs. Avon B sprint

Aberfan vs. Bareforest sprint

Elan Winter putting on the pace

Aberfan with the ball

Elan Winter avoiding being pushed over (crafty)

Rob Lineham with fast hands (Too fast for my camera, unless I unwittingly put on some slower shutter speed)

Welsh League Finals

The Welsh League is normally over and done with by May or June, but this year the weather was so bad that the final weekend had to be called off and rearranged for September.  Cardiff A went into it mid-table having played remarkably average in the first 2 tournaments.  I wasn’t at the earlier tournaments but this is what I was told.  

The Uni, on the other hand, went into the tournament bottom of the league, but this was because they couldn’t make the previous 2 tournaments due to exams and other student stuff, so they hadn’t played any games yet.  This meant they were going to have to play every team twice this weekend, so they had 10 games on and off the whole day!  They were going to be more tired than a Mexican who had just finished his first day of work.

Cardiff B were looking for promotion and had brought along their internation Iranian ringer to help them out...  With him in their team would have probably beaten the A team, but they didn't want to swap any player around just to make sure they were promoted.

They won their first game 20-0.  A score which was embarrassing more for them than the team they were playing against.  

This photo is Rob beating a Cardiff Uni girl in the sprint, but it looks pretty close.  The girls were all just too excited about the Iranians abs to care about the score!  It is a different class of polo player who does push ups between the games...

We had to play Rhonda A, Aberfan A and B, Cardiff Uni twice and Dragon.  Straight away it was obvious that the weekend had clashed with another event, as the teams we were due to play would have struggled in the baby leagues.  It felt like a waste of time even turning up, but if we aren’t going to support the local league then who will?

The day was looking pretty standard, we had our first game with the uni, which we won fairly easily, we had a fiery game against Rhonda, where we were accused of cheating many times!  This wasn’t the case, we were just poor and they were worse, but we ended up winning.  We then played the Aberfan teams which were the hardest games of the day but we won both.  

It all kicked off in our second game against the Uni, they decided that they didn’t want to play fair and pushed me over into an oncoming boat.  One dislocated shoulder later and they manage to scrape a draw against us.  This called for a short but exciting trip to A&E with Helen behind the wheel of my car.  Bearing in mind she hadn’t driven a manual car since the day she passed her test, I was fairly happy with just the one stall on the way there.

I found out later that we came third overall so I should get a sweet medal.  The B’s won the league and got promoted, so it should be fun next year playing against them!

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