St Andrew’s College achieved the best water polo result in their history this past weekend, producing an outstanding performance to win the Vides Water Polo tournament held over the weekend at the Joan Harrison pool in East London. This is the oldest and one of the most prestigious schools’ water polo tournaments in the country, not to mention one of the most demanding with ten matches to play in just two days.
St Andrew’s started well on Friday with a 7 – 3 win over Pearson. They then found themselves 4 – 1 down to a strong Grey PE side, before rallying back in a thrilling match to draw 5 – 5. They followed this with convincing wins over Collegians (12 - 2) and Bridgehouse (14 - 0), and in the final game of the first day they played an excellent game of controlled water polo to overcome the highly rated Bishops side 6 – 3.
St Andrew’s opened the second day with an 11 – 1 victory over Port Rex and a 10 – 2 victory over St Charles, and needing a 9 goal margin of victory against Stirling to finish top of their pool, they displayed clinical finishing to win 13 – 0 and qualify directly for the semi-finals.
St Andrew’s faced Bishops again in the semi-finals after the Cape Town side beat hosts Selborne in the quarter-finals. College started well and built up a 4 – 1 lead by half time. They continued to control the game in the second half, running away to a convincing 9 – 4 victory and a place in the tournament final against Grey PE, who beat last year’s winners Reddam in the other semi-final.
The final was played in front of a large crowd and was very evenly matched with both sides producing some high quality water polo. St Andrew’s controlled the match in the first two chukkas, and built up a deserved 3 – 0 lead by half time. However Grey came back strongly in the second half, scoring twice to trail 3 – 2 early in the final chukka. In a thrilling finale to the tournament, Grey were awarded two penalty shots late in the game, both of which were saved superbly by St Andrew’s goalkeeper Peter Cornish, and St Andrew’s held on under heavy pressure from Grey to win the match 3 – 2 and take home the Vides Trophy for the first time.
By winning the Vides Tournament, St Andrew’s achieved their best ever result in a major schools’ water polo tournament, and will be looking to build on this exceptional performance at the KES Tournament in Johannesburg in two weeks time. In addition, Matthew Malan was awarded the prize for the best forward in the tournament, an accolade he earned with some fine performances in the tournament.
G Creese
