Event: RNAS Culdrose Water Polo Tournament
Venue: Helston, Cornwall
Date: 9th June 2013
Swindon Dolphin had a profitable weekend in Cornwall at the annual RNAS Culdrose water polo tournament emerging as overall winners after a comfortable 8 – 3 victory against Basingstoke in the final. The tournament is hosted by the Royal Navy as a warm up to their annual inter-services competition and features teams from all over the country. Dolphin have now emerged winners in each of their last two appearances at the competition.
The format of the tournament involved all teams playing each other once to establish league positions on the Saturday, followed by a match to decide final positions on the Sunday. Dolphin’s opening game in the group phase was against Basingstoke and despite a slow start the team managed to salvage a draw before taking on the youthful squads from Devonport Royal and SouthamptonUniversity. Adjusting tactics and using the rolling possession clock to their advantage, minor fouls followed by hard counter attacking proved a successful strategy as Dolphin ran out easy winners in the two games beating Devonport 5 – 3 and the students 5 – 2.
After the break Dolphin continued their winning ways with a comfortable victory against the Royal Navy followed by an emphatic 4 – 1 win against a strong Jersey side, the islanders not coming to terms with Dolphin’s hard press. With a final place already confirmed the final game resulted in Dolphin’s only defeat of the day, going down to a controversial late winner from Newquay.
The following day’s final against Basingstoke saw Dolphin fall behind early in the game to trail at the end of the first quarter but from then on there was only one team in it as Dolphin dominated on their way to an ultimately comfortable 8- 3 victory.
Team victorious
Tournament top goal scorer Andy Strong was delighted with a good weekend’s work by the team. “We played some great polo. It was also a chance to further integrate the juniors in and out of the pool and that can only be good for the team. The lads loved every minute of it and it was topped off by the victory. We look forward to defending our title next year.”
Team: Dave Quinlivan, Chris Selby, Andy Hicks, Andy Strong, Michal Trzeciak, Ian Brewer, Matt James, Dan Dixon and Fraser Durston
