Bluefins suffer from slow starts

Bluefins Vs. Newton Abbot

Bluefins Vs. Bedford

The first weekend of the 2006 National League season found the Bluefins water polo team up against Newton Abbot, one of the favourites for the divisional title this year.

With several new players in addition to last year's team, the Bluefins started unnexceptably slowly, going down by five goals without reply in the first quarter.

The second quarter didn’t go much better, with Newton Abbott getting another three without reply and leaving Bluefins down 0-8 at halftime.

The third quarter started with another Newton Abbott goal (!!!), but then Trevor Jones opened the Bluefins account, followed by another from Paul Adams and another from Jones to give the Bluefins more confidence. Unfortunately, as the Bluefins pushed forward, Newton Abbot stole two break away goals before Gavin Bridger scored from a legendary drive into the pit, followed by a debutant goal from Adam Hilliard, leaving the end of the third quarter score 13-5.

The fourth quarter started with goals from Mike Bird and Steve Fairhead, but a couple more goals from Newton Abbot stopped any hopes of a Bluefins revival, and the Final score was 16-8 to Newton Abbot.

Coach Trevor Jones was pleased with the second half performance stating it “show’s we can compete at this level”.

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Bluefins Vs. Bedford [ Bluefins Vs. Newton Abbot ]

The second game of the weekend was against Bedford, and once again Bluefins started too slowly, letting Bedford go two goals up before Paul Adams scored from long range, and thenAdam Hilliard managed to level the score. Bedford managed to get themselves in front to finish the first quarter 2-3 up.

Damien Ralls pulled the scored level at the start of the second quarter, but poor defence cost the Bluefins a couple of goals. Coach Jones pulled the scores level with two goals in the space of 30 seconds! But with two seconds left Bedford produced a freak goal from inside their own half, managing to lob the Bluefins goalie to go in at half time 5-6 up.

That goal seemed to set Bluefins back, and Bedford scored 4 goals in the third quarter before Damien Ralls managed to get one back for the Bluefins.

Starting the last quarter 6-10 downthe Bluefins rallied with goals from Duncan Southam, Trevor Jones and Gavin Bridger to pull the score back to 9-10 with still 3 minutes remaining.

But despite constant Bluefins pressure, the poor finishing meant that they couldn’t complete the come back.

Final Score: Bedford 10, Basingstoke 9

Team:
Chris Seipp, Mike Seipp, Gavin Bridger, Steve Fairhead, Trace Morgan, Mike Bird, Adam Hilliard, Trevor Jones, Duncan Southam, Colin Lown, Paul Adams Damien Ralls

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