Watford Water Polo’s Junior team qualify for the next round of the ASA National Age group Championships
On Saturday March 16th Woodside Leisure Centre played host some of the best water polo teams
from around the country in the first round of the ASA National Club Competition.
Watford’s Juniors were up against teams from Solihull, Castleford, Manchester, Sheffield and Basingstoke with the top four teams progressing into the Qualification round to be held in Liverpool
in Mid-April.
Watford’s first game of day was largely a one-sided affair with Solihull controlling the game and
capitalising on each Watford mistake. Watford lost their opening fixture 9-3.
Next came a game against Castleford, and the team took an early lead which they never
relinquished, with strong pit play from Jason Attwood resulting in a further two goals and with a
number of man-up situations, which Watford executed extremely well and with goals from Hamish
Hudson & Paul Botje the team won their first game of the afternoon 5-3.
Next up were Manchester who took full control of the game & ran our easy winners 10-2, not many
highlights to talk about with this one.
Watford now needed to win at least one of their remaining two matches against Sheffield &
Basingstoke & first up Sheffield were duely dispatched in a comfortably victory (7-2), this win then
set up a deciding match against Basingstoke.
The match was won in defence, with Basingstoke failing to score until there was only 2 minutes to go
– at which point the match was beyond them. In their best performance of the day Watford finished
5–2 winners. One highlight was goalkeeper Karan Basu’s first goal for the U18’s, a spectacular lob from his own 5 meter line.
Having finished in the top four Watford qualify for the next stage which takes place in Liverpool in
mid-April. Getting through to the next round of such a prestigious competition is an achievement
not just for the boys, who performed exceptionally, but for the whole club. It was great to see
supporters in the crowd who had come down to watch some quality polo, and not just because their
boys were playing!
The team (goals in brackets)
GK K Basu (1), J Attwood (7), A Nash, J Inwood (1), G Sadler, J Pickford (1), J Stienhart, R Kumarage, H
Hudson (5), P Pickford (2), L Abeywickrama, S Carling, P Botje (2)
Final table
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
Final Positions
Solihull
City of Manchester (3)
Watford
Basingstoke Bluefins
Castleford
Pts
10
6
6
5
3
GF
44
36
22
28
22
GA
21
19
26
31
30
Diff
23
17
-4
-3
-8
6th
City of Sheffield (2)
*Blue = Qualified, () = Seeds.
0
8
33
-25