Sunday, January 08, 2006

Life as a neophyte canoe polo player

The SRRR for canoe polo ended today - My team Vortex went in without anyone knowing who the hell we were, and I wonder what impression people had of us now. We played our first match using the heavy acrobats borrowed from SP and then ended up using more and more composite boats till it became 1 cyclone with 4 composites in match 4. But we got trashed 5-2 for the first two matches, both games letting in 3 goals by the 3rd minute. We got full-pressed (man-marked) from the 1st to the last minute against SP Rookies, and ended up 7 to nil I think. Won 2-1 for the last match against NP's 1st year team, but still we know we suck.

Have to balance our self-critique with small consolations though, seeing that we got no substitutes for the entire tournament, played once as a full team together only, and otherwise only training with 3-5 people doing attack-defence drills to no end. Think we got progressively better in attack, and we experienced firsthand the excellent standards of the better teams in the competition.

And yes, I'm actually glad to be in the group of death and to lose to the best in the land, than to go for cheap wins. Now I only need to remember these lessons well and work hard to achieve the potential that my boat allowed me.

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