Sunday, 10 September 2006 05:39
Written by Gavin Bridger
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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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 then
Adam 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
Serbia and Hungary both won their first-round finales Tuesday and advanced to the men's semifinals at the European Water Polo Championships with perfect 5-0 records. 
