WATERPOLO - Varsity Report
Monday 1 March 2010
The 110th Varsity Water Polo matches took place on the 20th February at the Rosenblatt Swimming pool in Oxford. The Cambridge Ladies’ team edged out a dramatic 5-6 win over the Dark Blues, whereas the Cambridge Men put in what was easily their best performance of the season, but unfortunately went down 6-4 to a strong Oxford side, spurred on by an energetic crowd.
After an impressive victory for the Cambridge alumni, the women were on first. The team went into their Varsity match with confidence after a recent dominant win over Oxford in BUCS. However, the Light Blues knew that Oxford would raise their game for the grudge match, and they did, keeping the match tight and remaining in the game up until the final whistle.
It soon became apparent that Oxford had fielded a much more disciplined team than Cambridge were prepared for. They had sharpened up their tactics, and played an effective drop on the pit to keep several key players out of the game. Cambridge seemed unsure of how to respond, with several speculative and unsuccessful efforts from range, as well as easily intercepted passes to the pit attacker. Despite struggling offensively, Cambridge showed their class with a strong defence from Sally Bullock and Lizzy Day in particular. Notable goals from Sarah Hopkins and Jeanie Ward-Waller kept Cambridge within two points of Oxford.
After a stern team talk at half time, Cambridge regrouped and Captain Josie Faulkner led numerous high-speed counterattacks up the pool. Oxford continued their drop, allowing Cambridge to move closer in to goal, and unleash some powerful testing shots, notably from Rebecca Vorhees. Voorhees won it for the team, scoring four blinding goals giving Cambridge the lead in the fourth quarter.
Although a slightly less assured performance than that of a few weeks before, Cambridge did always look the better side, and played a better standard of Water Polo throughout the match. It was an extremely close contest culminating in a deserved win for the Light Blues.
Boosted by the women’s result the men’s match opened with some encouraging attacking play from Cambridge, although seemingly unable to convert some of their early opportunities Steve Cooke scored a good individual goal to give Cambridge the lead. Oxford came back strong, testing the Cambridge defence, and eventually equalising. The second and third quarters were very close, with not much to separate the teams, although with players tiring both sides lost some of their shape in attack. With the score tied at 4-4 going into the final quarter, the Cambridge team knew that the match could still be won, and started out strong after fiery words from Captain Riccardo di Pietro and Coach Andy Knight. Crucially, 3 minutes into the fourth quarter Oxford re-took the lead, once again Cambridge pushed forward and tried valiantly to equalise, but with no result. After the Dark Blues doubled their lead with less than two minutes remaining Cambridge still fought hard, but were unable to claw back the deficit, the match finishing a frustrating 6-4 defeat.
The Cambridge side put in a disciplined performance, and members of the crowd commented on how unified they looked as a team. Sadly a chronic inability to put away their goal-scoring opportunities throughout the match meant that the Men were unable to capitalise on some good attacking play. Defensively they looked fairly solid, covering back well, and impressively managed to keep a side featuring the imposing Shaun Hotchkiss to just six goals. Goalkeeper Alex Ross also consistently made top-class saves, including one penalty, to keep the match close. Cambridge now really need to work on their finishing if they want to take their polo to the next level.
Matthew Ingrams, Josie Faulkner
