HABS water polo success

With the year fast approaching and an imminent move to Rugby School on the horizon, I still wanted to make sure the HABS water polo team made a successful end to the year; and so far so good! The Under 18 side finished second in the Under 18 competition on Sunday (those darned Mancunians won yet another title ((it doesn't matter if these Mancunians wear blue or red)) and The Under 14s are through to the National Finals as top seeds from the South and yesterday they won the Under 14s School's League. Not a bad set of results for one week's work. The new HEAD OF AQUATICS - Mister P D Stiff, has had a pretty successful start to his reign after taking over from The Big Dog. Stiffy's mighty water polo teams are now played 16 won 15 and the only loss is in the national final (although arguably this is the only one that we urgently wanted to win). The competition on Sunday was pretty fierce, we may have been seeded second (after a 9-1 pummeling of City of London in the semi-finals) but finishing in the top two was by no means assured. Our first game was against Bolton School (second seeds from Up North) and we knew this would not be easy. Bolton are always well drilled and eager to cause an upset (they also have a grander reputation in the water polo world than this little School from Elstree) and they were in no mood to lie down. However, we went about this match in a most un-HABS manner by actually starting well. We went 4 goals up very quickly and Mr Baker and Mr Dean soon realised that the Bolton Goalkeeper was still to wake up from what must have been one Big Saturday night out on the town. Our set-ups were good, our defense was very strong and our arguing with the referee was also unfortunately strong. Even with a man sent out to the side we had The Colenut to sure us up in defense and the tireless effort of Nashy in both attack and dropping to help J. Lawrence in pit defence. Hugo made some excellent swims at the start of the first half and it was his attacking play on the overlap that lead to a lot of the space that Tom and Jared enjoyed. The second half was a differnt story. The Bolton keeper had clearly taken a couple of Alka Seltzer over the break and he finally saved a shot. Hugo was - to use a technical term- knackered, and we forgot the hard work that we had put in to achieve the goals in the first half. The end result was a nervy last 2 minutes and us eventually winning 11 goals to 8. Special mention must go to Jacko, JJ and Westy for their efforts off the bench as the fitness of the team came under question (unfortunatley not the only time that this occurred that afternoon). Mission One accomplished. Match 2 was a different story - Torquay were a known quantity from the Southern Qualifying and they had one particularly good player that we would need to keep a close eye on (as Bolton failed to realise in their loss to this side). This match also saw us without Mr Kohler after his little chat with the referee in the first match. Up stepped The Colenut again to put in a strong game alongside James in defence. This match saw James make up for his lack of attendance in training as he almost single handedly prevented the Torquay attack from functioning. End result - HABS 7, Torquay 3 - HABD WIN GROUP 2. Onwards to the semi-finals! The semi-final saw us meet our local nemesis - City of London School. Their Ozzie coach knows our team very well and although we have beaten them Home and Away, The Neighbours rivalry would finally mean something in this all important of games. Our last game against them finished in a draw that somehow meant that we lost the School's league on points (Maths never was Big Dog's strength ) and so this was a grudge match that we were not prepared to lose. City's defence is unfortunately as well drilled as ours (those Ozzies do know tactical sport well it seems) and we needed to Foster a different appraoch that our XXXX expletives seen in Game One. With 25 seconds to go in the first half, a time out was called, a change in set up for the arc occurred and that man Nashy popped up to drive in from the far post. Westy's quote of 'he'll never score from there' again showed his immense knowledge of the game. The second half built from this point and Kohler made amends for his Exclusion with some strong link play, excellent drives and tracking back. City's weakness on the right was again exploited and we won the semi 4 goals to 1. On to the Final - Manchester the Goliath of water polo v HABS. We set up with a half press with an aim of stopping the counter attack that had killed off every other team they had played against. This worked for the first half and we were one goal to nil down at half time. We needed to keep it tight, keep playing as we were and stop the counter attack. I repeat stop the counter attack. Unfortunately our fitness let us down, our tracking back failed us and we did not STOP THE COUNTER ATTACK. The highlight of the final was great pit defence again from James, excellent driving and gambiling from Nashy, a valliant pit attack from Tom (even with 4 men on him at times) and tireless work from Jared at the top of the arc. Jared's excellent shooting that won us the match against City was unfrotunately hitting the bar in the final (games are decided by centimetres). The final highlight and the final mention in this blog edition must go to Westy. Westy had been promised a meal if he scored the winner and this was probably to be his final game for HABS. He got in, swam with determination and force, got the ball...... and shot from half way. He then got the ball again ..... and shot from half way. Finally, he got the ball..... there were seconds to go ........ and he shot from half way. Westy's moto of YOLO was being chanted by the crowd. The HABS parents were holding up YOLIO banners and the claxons and horns were wailing (the claxons and horns really there) ... and again he shot from half way. Needless to say, none of the shots went but after his 7 years at the school and attendance at every training session since he was 12, Westy deserved his shot at glory and one shot was an absolute screamer that hit the post. Overall - well done to the team on finishing as runners up. Many thanks to Tom and Westy for all their work and effort this year. The Under 14s yesterday clearly benefitted from the help you have offered in training. And, good luck at University. For the Under 17s - Winning is the only option next year. Just realised - I have not mentioned Ryo. Despite his water polo training consisting of playing violin, he somehow never fails to impress. Yet again the best goalkeeper on show and a huge credit to the school. Onward to the Under 14s final next weekend. YOLO boys, YOLO!