24 March 2022

On Monday Abingdon’s water polo squad travelled to Northampton School for Boys to compete in the National Bowl championship. We were seeded sixth going in to the competition, there were six teams in total. The team had played in this pool before, it’s a drop pool with a variable depth – so there is no shallow end to take a breather. The quality of the opposition at this event is usually very strong, with teams such as St Paul’s, London Oratory and Brighton College in attendance.

In our first group game against Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar, we tore into them to lead 3-0 at the half. Our defensive play was sublime, the attacking flow was marvellous and there were opportunities galore. The team were almost surprised with how well they were playing and as a consequence there were about four chances that could easily have been converted into goals. The second half finished at 5-1 and granted Abingdon it’s first ever polo win in a national competition, with official referees and playing in a deep pool. Can Tugcetin scored a hat-trick, Alex Cooper Marcos and Chris Skelton also got on the scoreboard. Johnny James and Zac Cooper played brilliantly almost scoring themselves but also contributing some key passes.

Our second group game was against tournament favourites London Oratory. We held them off with a strong defensive game in the first half but ultimately fell 4-0. Oratory were a hugely impressive team and certainly our pick to go on to win the tournament. One win and one loss placed us second in the group and qualified us for the semi-final to play the winner of the other group.

We had a five minute turnaround after the Oratory game to play our semi-final game against St Paul’s. They had played both group games earlier on and were very rested. St Paul’s had hugely impressed in their group games – beating strong opposition both times. We held St Paul’s to 2-0 and half time and ultimately went on to lose 3-0, but to be honest, against a team that clearly had club players, plenty of experience and with a history of success in higher level competitions we were very proud of the scoreline. Oratory lost their semi-final against Brighton College to set up a third place rematch with us. They shredded us 7-0 in our third place playoff and the goals rained in: with an eclectic mix of screen plays, backhand shots, lobs and a rather dazzling long range goal keeper shot that spun around his body first (thankfully didn’t score). As Oratory stepped it up a gear, our inexperienced and exhausted squad made several defensive errors and blew a chance at a consolation goal. St Paul’s went on to win a nail biting final that our team stayed behind to watch – soaking up more valuable experience.

It has been an epic first season for water polo. We may have only won two games but the standard of play has skyrocketed and the team are confident about next year and look forward to building on the foundations that they have created. We are sad to see Ianto Brewer and Zac Cooper leave us in the Upper Sixth but look forward to hopefully an influx of young talent from our academy players in third and fourth year. It is worth mentioning that upon arriving we touched base with Charterhouse who had finished their tournament earlier in the day. Charterhouse had narrowly lost their final game in the National Plate. They were really impressed with how many fixtures we had played and how far we had come this year. The ESSA officials who remembered us from the qualifiers last year also commented on our exceptional improvement as a team and even came over to speak to us after the 5-1 game to praise our play.

I suppose, in line with current popular Disney music our catchphrase for this season is : “we don’t talk about Eton”. Well done to all involved and we look forward to next year, but you never know we might even be able to wangle some summer term fixtures!

The squad that travelled to Northampton were:

Ianto Brewer (captain)
Zac Cooper
Alex Cooper Marcos
Will d’Arcy
Johnny James
Henry Dearden
Chris Skelton
Jacob Lamsdale
Joe Watkiss
Dhruv Hegde
Thomas Jackson
Robert Smith
Can Tugcetin

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