Spain
Navarra (Sean King)- A strong end to the season ensured a play off place against Sabadell. After losing 6-17 in the 1st leg at home the team based in Pamplona rallied in the 2nd leg putting in a stronger performance but unfortunately couldn’t come away with a shock win and lost 11-8. With the club in financial trouble Sean’s future there for next season is unsure but nothing has been decided yet. Lets hope they can pull something out of the bag as I know Sean enjoys his life there.
Catalunya (Rob Parker & Ciaran James)- They didn’t qualify for the play offs so their season finished in the middle of April. Ultimately a mixed season for the lads with some great wins but a lack of consistency which is understandable as the team is very young. Rob is returning to England in May to start a job in London so won’t be playing abroad again next year. Ciaran is waiting to talk to the club before he comes back to England for the summer and wants to continue playing abroad.
Mediterrani (Ed Scott)- Ed’s team qualified for the plays off and came up against Rob and Scott Carpenters ex team Terrassa. After losing the 1st match at home Medi put in two fantastic performances to win twice in Terrassa and secure a semi final spot. Videos of the matches can be found here http://elcuervowaterpolo.blogspot.fr/ and are worth a watch as Ed makes some cracking saves and leads his team to victory against an experienced and quality team. Somewhat of bittersweet victory for their American Jeff Schwimmer as he had a flight booked home for Monday which he had to cancel to stay and play the semi vs Sabadell this weekend. Medi lost narrowly twice to Sabadell in the regular season but Ed is still confident they can win as him and his team are in great form. I guess all that swimming this season has paid off!
Ed at full stretch!
France
Nice (Jack Waller)- Nice finished the regular season this weekend gone with an easy victory (13-6) to bottom team Taverny. This means they finish 4th and will play Marseille in the 1-4 play offs. Having lost a tight match 11-10 back in March Jack is confident they can give the league winners a game when they play the 1st leg in Nice this Saturday.
Aix en Provence (Matt Holland)- We finished the season strongly with three wins at home vs Senlis, Strasbourg and Douai which took us to 21 points and 7th place. Interestingly the highest points tally Aix have ever achieved in the top division which is nice. The federation announced this week that 5th place will be a European spot so there is all to play for now in the 5-8 play offs. This starts this weekend at home again vs Douai.
Me saving a lob!
Lille (Scott Martin)- A mixed bag of results at the end of the season with wins vs league winners Reims but loses and draws against lower placed teams meant Lille didn’t mount a serious challenge to win the league and finish 2nd. The federation has yet to confirmed if the top 2 teams are automatically promoted to make at ‘pro A’ top division of 12 teams so Scott and his team will have to wait and see what happens.
Germany
SV Weiden (Sean Ryder)- Sean’s Weiden secured 1st division status for a a 7th consecutive season by winning 6-9 and 10-7 in a best of 3 play down series vs SGW Rhenaniastraße Cologne / Köln Poseidon BW.
SV Bayer 08 Uerdingen (Jake Vincent)- A disappointing end of season for Jake as they lost the 1/4 finals of the play offs vs Canstadt going down 9-8 and 9-12 in the best of 3 series. However, they still have the finals of the German cup to contest in May at their home pool so hopefully they can get over the league disappointment and win a trophy.
Australia
Firstly a short match report about the all stars game Scott played in this month;
“It was a very intense game, with all the Aussie players trying to impress their new Croatian national team coach. We only had a 1 hour as a team the morning of the game so we weren’t expecting too much cohesion. It was tight all the way through with us generally edging ahead and then the North equalising. We had a lot of centre forwards and centre backs which meant not much rest for our shooters, and I think the North just had a bit more energy towards the end. It could have gone either way and it was 7 7 with a minute to go when my defender got excluded, leaving me alone with the keeper. As I went to shoot, the ref blew for a foul somewhere off the ball, and they went and scored the winner at the other end from a 5m foul. It would have been nice to win but, like the game at Bondi, the event was more important than the result. It was played in front of 500 kids and parents at the u14 national championships so it was a nice atmosphere and good for the Aussie kids to see some high level polo and meet all the players”
Scott’s Victorian Tigers won all of their games in the regular season (22 from 22) and now go into the play offs with the top 8 teams as clear favourites. Scott finished as 2nd top scorer with 59 goals, beaten by team mate Sam Mcgregor who notched up 76.
Glen and Alex’s Adelaide jets finished 12 with only 2 wins. Glen scored 28 goals and Alex 22.
More updates soon on the progress of Ed, Scott, Jack and Matt in their play off matches.
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