GBR Water Polo Team travel to Victory

The Under 20 Women’s Great Britain Water Polo team come home with a gold medal after beating such teams as Portugal, Germany and Italy.

The GBR girls first met Italy on the Wednesday and many felt the butterflies eating away at their stomachs, however, they came out as the winning team, thrashing the young Italian team 11-5 with Fran Clayton netting 4 peachy goals.

The next day brought on the Germans. The girls were feeling extremely confident after their strong win the night before but Germany put up a sturdy fight with GBR being victorious in the end. The end result was 10-7 with Rachel Drabble scoring 3 and Rebecca Benson adding to her tally with 2 goals.

After two undefeated games the girls were feeling the heat to keep up their excellent form.  The next match proved to be a difficult one as GBR faced the home team and crowd.   As soon as Portugal walked into the pool area a roar pierced your ears with the crowd chanting their nation’s name.   Great Britain were fired up and ready to test the Portugal fans’ allegiance. The girls fought against the crowd, the referees and the Portuguese team to come away with a 6 all draw. Rebecca Kershaw and Fran Clayton both placed 2 goals each past the Portugal goalie.

Now the GBR girls were through to the final which was against Italian team who had shown a rapid improvement throughout the week. The girls missed a few opportunities which could have thrown them into an early lead. The Italian team had an impenetrable man-down defence, blocking most of the GBR shots.  With both teams showing excellent abilities and strength, Great Britain came out on top with a 9-8 win. Rebecca Benson scored a massive four goals.

GBR top goal scorers were Fran Clayton with 8, Rebecca Kershaw following hot on her toes with 7 and Rebecca Benson and Rachel Drabble scored 6 each. The closing ceremony saw a lot of action with one Portuguese player fainting from the heat and GBR’s Team Manager blushing after being kissed on the cheeks by a strapping gentleman for being the Best Team Manager.

Szilveszter Fekete comments, “With the team not playing together since August 2008, they showed excellent potential for the summer Europeans in Naples, Italy.”

Written by Rachel Drabble, U20’s captain