Seagulls trio picked for Great Britain (From Bournemouth Echo)

Seagulls trio picked for Great Britain

6:16pm Wednesday 30th December 2009 in

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THREE members of Christchurch and New Milton Seagulls’ water polo team have been selected for the Great Britain talent squad.

Sam Webber, 14, and 13-year-olds Charlie Roberts and Jackson Mullins are among 60 boys chosen following a tournament at the National Water Polo Academy held at Millfield School in the summer.

The selection is the highest water polo honour available at their age.

News of the selections rounds off a successful year for Seagulls, whose swimmers also became Division Two champions in the National Arena Swimming League West earlier this month.

Only four clubs in England and Wales have more players in the GB talent squad than Seagulls – a remarkable statistic for a club that only took up water polo four years ago.

Seagulls’ water polo coach Rob Webber said: “This is the youngest a player can be selected for GB water polo and to get three players into the talent squad is unreal.

“When our head coach Barry Alldrick brought water polo into Seagulls four years ago, this wasn’t even part of our dreams. In fact we didn’t even know that this squad existed!”

But he added: “In reality this is only the start for Charlie, Jackson and Sam. It’s a great achievement but the real work starts here.

“They will now attend monthly, weekend-long training sessions with the GB coaches.

“They will face regular tests, trials and tournaments and will have to continuously compete for their places over the next two years. The talent squad will constantly change as it is trimmed to form an elite squad to compete for Great Britain in the European Junior Championships in 2012.”

Roberts, Mullins and Webber are among eight Seagulls players who travel to Exeter every Friday to train at the regional training centre.

The club has made startling progress in its four years in water polo, winning a string of titles in the Dorset leagues and making an impact against more established teams in tournaments across the south.

Several Seagulls players also now play for clubs in Devon and Hampshire.

Seagulls are seen by the ASA nationally as a model of how to integrate speed swimming and water polo.

Rob Webber, who is also Sam’s dad, said: “We have done something special at Seagulls, in swimming and water polo simultaneously.

“The challenge now is to maintain this level of achievement.”

n Bournemouth SC Ladies pul-led off a spectacular tournament win at Basingstoke despite having only nine players to call on.

The team remained unbeaten after their four matches against Worthing, City of Southampton, Basingstoke Bluefins and Southampton University, winning two and drawing two.

They went into the final match needing to avoid defeat against Southampton University to win the tournament and drew 4-4.

The Bournemouth team included young players from Blandford and Seagulls, who only run junior teams.

These included Blandford’s Hannah Jack, whose scoring ability on the counter-attack was singled out for praise by Bournemouth captain Jana Kolarikova.

“It was the ability of everybody working as a team that enabled us to do so well,” said Kolarikova.