Water Polo: Tournament first for Seagulls (From Bournemouth Echo)

Water Polo: Tournament first for Seagulls

4:35pm Wednesday 14th July 2010 in

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CHRISTCHURCH and New Milton Seagulls ended their water polo season on another high as their under-16 side won the Red Cross Invitational Tournament at Basingstoke.

A 3-2 victory in a thrilling final turned the tables on London League champions Croydon Amphibians, who won the trophy last year following a controversial finale.

It was Seagulls’ first tournament win and it came just a week after they became the first Dorset team ever to reach a South West regional championship final.

Several members of that silver-winning under-15 squad also made the trip to Basingstoke along with four older members of the Dorset county squad.

Seagulls again sailed through the group matches, thrashing Worcester 13-2 and Salisbury 12-1 to set up a final against a Croydon team that included two Great Britain talent squad players.

The London champs set off at a high tempo and took an early 2-0 lead.

But Seagulls regrouped and started to press Croydon’s key players hard to deny them the ball.

“We strangled the life out of Croydon’s talented attack and grew in confidence,” said Seagulls coach Rob Webber.

“We hit the woodwork twice and drew several fine saves from the Croydon keeper.”

The Dorset club finally made the breakthrough just before half-time, reducing the arrears to 2-1.

Three minutes into the second half Seagulls suddenly found an extra gear, surging forward with a series of fierce attacks.

But they had to wait until four minutes from the end to level the scores thanks to an excellent pit move, which saw Croydon’s defence melt away under the relentless pressure.

The closing minutes were tense and dramatic.

Seagulls deployed their full-pool press to deny Croydon any scoring opportunities.

They also attacked the Croydon goal relentlessly but a combination of the woodwork and the goalkeeper kept the south London side in the game. With two minutes to go, Seagulls missed a penalty and the young side were visibly affected by the setback.

Croydon mounted a fast counter-attack only to lose the ball in what became the turning point of the game.

From the steal, Seagulls’ Jackson Mullins launched a 20-metre pass to Sam Webber, who caught the ball cleanly, turned, faked the keeper and shot into the vacant net to put Seagulls ahead for the first time with a minute left.

Still Croydon weren’t finished and with 28 seconds to go – and in a re-run of last year – the Londoners were awarded a controversial penalty.

Coach Webber’s protests earned him a yellow card but he needn’t have worried.

Seagulls’ keeper Ali Rogers leapt high to his right to save the shot and secure a 3-2 victory for his team.

“This is yet another landmark result for us,” said Webber. “The youngsters showed amazing strength of mind and determination.”

Blandford Flyers, meanwhile, bounced back from two defeats at the group stage to beat Worcester 9-7 in the play-off for fifth place.