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GB Selections for three Rotherham metro players

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Sam Swainson

George Jackson

Oliver Vodden

 

Huge congratulations to these players have been selected for the under 19's Junior Men's GB squad for the European Qualifiers.

 

 

https://www.swimming.org/waterpolo/britain-u19-men-squad/?fbclid=IwAR0P8tZG7e-trsG89XSejjuSVzvKnqsGMkNTIe8Ytln1fBIZeHClqKTeV8w

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Men's National League 2019/20

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The Final weekend of Men’s National league was a mixture of highs and lows for the squad. Having come back out of condition after the Christmas break we lost our first two matches of phase 2 to Hucknall and Croydon. During the team talk afterward the team agreed that if they wanted to get promotion it would be down to training hard over the next 2 months to get into Division 3.

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With a re-vitalised team that have been not only training with Rotherham but with Sheffield University who kindly allowed them to train on a Mon and Thursday with them we set out to prove a point on the second weekend.

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With three excellent wins against York 18-9, Tyldesley 15-11 and Bridgefield 13-10 the squad got back on track taking us to joint 2nd with 3 other teams.

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The final weekend was going to be so tough, Cheltenham with Rob Parker ( GB Centre forward at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He is 6 ft 6 inches tall and was the top goal scorer for Team GB with 8 goals in the London Olympics. Rob also played professionally in the Australian and Spanish leagues and is still one of the best players in the country) along with about 4 or 5 other ex-GB international players turned out for Cheltenham on the Saturday. They had gone unbeaten all phase 2 and even though they had already won Championship 3 were determined to go unbeaten this season with their key players playing pretty much the whole match.

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Quote from BWPL website “ Cheltenham were never behind against Rotherham - until the last 27 seconds of the match.

Spartans seemed to be cruising to victory as they went 11-7 up in the third period. Then Rotherham hit back, pulling up to a goal adrift at 12-11 with goals by Oliver Vodden (2) and Craig Mellors (2). Cheltenham rallied again, a couple of goals by Michael Thomas and Rob Parker's seventh of the match establishing a 14-12 lead.

Back, once again, came Rotherham. Mellors scored, then Vodden claimed his seventh of the game from a man-up to make it 14-14. Just 27 seconds remained when Sam Swainson hit a winner.”

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The team were buzzing after pulling off the best win this team had ever had, playing the best polo I have ever seen them play.

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Unfortunately for us to secure promotion we not only needed to beat Southampton on the Sunday but we were relying on Tyldesley and Bridgefield to take at least a point against Croydon or Hucknall. Both Croyden and Hucknall won on the Saturday and with Tyldesley missing their big player Adison Brown all our hopes were on Bridgefield taking at least a point against Hucknall.

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It wasn’t to be, Hucknall managed to beat Bridgefield in a very close match 14-11 meaning our chances of promotion were dashed with one match still remaining for us to play.

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It was heart-breaking to see the player’s faces when we got to the pool at the half way stage of the third qtr realising it was looking extremely doubtful for promotion this season.

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A team talk to try to lift their spirits seemed to have little effect to the moral and enthusiasm of the squad until we got in the water again for the warm up. The team put the bad news behind them and the smiles returned.

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The team could have quite easily gone through the motions but instead they played their hearts out, fighting for every ball, working hard and playing some excellent Water polo to finish 12-4, a feat in itself as the worst game Southampton played all season was a 5 goal loss against Cheltenham the league Champions.

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With us scoring 55.5% of our man ups on the final weekend and conceding only 2 goals on our man downs (33%). Compared with the first weekend of Phase 2, scoring 43.75% of goals on the man up and conceding 72% of our man downs it shows how far we have come as a squad in just a short period of time.

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Next season our goals have changed looking at what we can achieve with hard work and dedication. We are not just going for promotion we WILL win Championship 3.

I could not have been prouder as a coach and as players you should all be proud of yourselves and the rest of your team mates.

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With some younger rising stars training very hard we will be a force to reckon with in the future.

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Ladies National League 2019 /2020

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Feb 2020

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Rotherham Metro clinched the women’s Championship 2 crown in emphatic style at Northampton School for Boys School , hammering nearest rivals Liverpool Liver Birds 16-4 to gain promotion and win Championship 2 unbeaten all season.

The sides finished the first quarter at 2-2 and it was 5-2 to Rotherham after two. Then the new champions really took charge, scoring seven in the third  through Lucy Hobman (2), Amber Linney, Emma Jackson, Emily Crossley, Kate Parkin and Becky Lee.

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Manchester Festival

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22/02/20

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Fantastic days polo against some good teams finishing with a fantastic Silver medal.

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Results

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Rotherham Metro 2    Radcliffe  2

Rotherham Metro 6    Grantham 6

Rotherham Metro 13  St Ambrose 0

Rotherham Metro 8    Sedgefield 1

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Semi Final

Rotherham Metro 7   Chester 5

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Final

Rotherham Metro 2    Liverpool 9

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Silver Medal

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 GB Under 19's travel to Serbia

 

Rotherham Metro players Oliver Vodden, Sam Swainson and George Jackson travel to Serbia with the GB squad prior to the final selection for the European Qualifiers in April.

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Along side the players was Rotherham metro's Senior Men's coach who is also the assistant coach for the GB squad who said "Working with coaches of this level not only helps our players but helps me understand the game better and can help ALL our players at Rotherham improve"

 

 They had an intense week working with Serbia National Team Head Coach Dejan Savić and Nikola Raden Serbian Centre back in the 2012 Olympics.

 

 It was wonderful for the GB U19 junior men’s squad and an absolute privilege to learn from the best in the world and bring all that they have learned back to Rotherham Metro.

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Two Rotherham Metro Player selected for England

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Congratulations and good luck to Poppy Stephenson who have been selected for the England Junior Women's team to compete at the forthcoming EU Nations Tournament.

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Coach Simon Tomlinson is looking forward to another intensive training camp weekend in Manchester as the players continue to build towards next month's prestigious tournament in the Czech Republic.

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Congratulations to Oliver Vodden of Rotherham Metro who has been selected for the England Junior Men’s 03 squad to compete in the upcoming EU Nations tournament in Brno, Czech Republic over the Easter weekend .

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2003+ Boys Inter Regional's

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Feb 2019

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The North East Region Boys Under 18 Water Polo team finished in second place in division one of the Swim England Inter Regional competition in Sheffield over the weekend of 1st and 2nd February 2020.

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Rotherham Metro players selected

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Oliver Vodden

Dylan Hobman

Ben Alderson

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Congratulations to Oliver Vodden from the North East Team, who won Top goalscorer and NE MVP plus the overall tournament MVP.

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Bronze for U18 North East Girls Team at 2003+ Inter Regional Water Polo Competition

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January 27, 2020

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The North East Region Girls Water Polo team finished in third place in division one of the Swim England Inter Regional competition in Manchester over the weekend of 25th and 26th January 2020.

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The following players representing Rotherham Metro in the North East squad are:

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Connie Swainson

Emma Jackson

Emily Crossley

Poppy Stephenson

Laura Skelton

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Results

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North East Steelers   6    Ireland 12

North East Steelers   18  South West 8

North East Steelers   13  North West 13

North East Steelers   15 South East

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2006+ Girls Inter regional

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The North East 2006+ Girls team competed at the Inter Regions in Walsall on 30th November and the 1st Dec 2020.

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Rotherham Metro Players

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Connie Swainson

Lola Carver-Brown

Laura Skelton

Isobel Olcer

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We had our team talk before the first match and set out our tactics for the weekend.  I felt that if we played as a team, not as individuals, we had a very good chance of a medal.

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Going into the competition I was confident in our team, with two very capable Centre Backs in Connie and Amelia I felt that we could ball line press in defence and put allot of pressure on the attacking team. We had worked hard on this in the last few weeks and it paid dividends at the weekend only conceding 17 goals in the whole tournament and causing the attacking teams allot of problems. 

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This was complimented by our scoring capabilities; we played excellent as a team in attack with very good, unselfish water polo from the whole team resulting in every single player scoring during the weekend.   This included taking advantage of the new rules and allowing our goalkeeper to join the attack.  Severn came out to attack three times and we scored on all three occasions including two goals from our goalkeeper Severn which I think was one of the highlights of the whole weekend for the whole team. We managed 75 goals in 6 matches, that is 17 more than any other team in the competition.

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The semi-final against North West was a fantastic match and in fairness the score did not reflect how close the match was, the girls started fantastic against the tournaments number one seed and showed grit and determination for the full match.

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The final was a re-match of our earlier encounter with Ireland, Ireland had won the first time 7-4 but we felt that this could be a result that we could turn around.  Ireland came at us very strong, frustrating our players in attack and forcing us to rush and make mistakes.  With the score line at 5-2 down with only 3 minutes left on the clock some teams would have given up but the girls showed grit, determination and heart to score 3 times in the last 3 mins to take the match to penalties.

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No one likes a penalty shootout but the girls although extremely nervous performed fantastic, good penalties taken by all the players and Severn managing to pull off two fantastic saves won us the title.

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Congratulations to Laura who won team MVP, Tournament MVP and top goal scorer in the tournament.

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Results

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North East Steelers     26 – 0 Wales

North East Steelers     4 – 7 Ireland

North East Steelers     16 – 0 East Midland

North East Steelers     14 – 1 South East

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Semi Final

North East Steelers     10 – 4 North West Thunder

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Final

North East Steelers     8 – 6 Ireland (After Penalties)

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2005+ Nags Boys

 

November 2019

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Rotherham metro boy's William Nixon, Henry Jackson, Ben Alderson, Dylan Hobman and Harry Wallbanmk helped Sedgefield water polo club has claim their ninth National title.

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Members of Sedgefield  and Rotherham Water polo Club came together and were praised for their ‘excellent performance’ when they took to the pool at Sunderland Aquatic Centre.

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The club was crowned Swim England U15s boys national age group champions after they won all three of their group matches.

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They defeated Birmingham, Caledonia and Bridgefield to set up a semi-final clash against Cheltenham.

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A spokesperson for the club said: "In a thrilling final against Devonport, the two sides were locked at four and four, at the interval before we edged ahead, only for Devonport to be awarded a penalty in the dying seconds of the game.

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"But the chance was missed and Sedgefield held on to take the gold medal after winning all five of their matches."

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Sedgefield head coach Adam Woods added: “I’m so, so impressed with all of them. They played very well, both teams. The fact it came down to the last goal, the last penalty was fantastic. I couldn’t have asked for anymore from the lads.

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Northern league 2019 (2005+)

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Dylan Hobman

Henry Jackson

Connie Swainson

Lola Carver-Brown

Harry Wallbank

William Nixon

Sam Dillon

William Harthorn

Thomas Barnes

Samuel Leveridge

 

Rotherham Metro 2 v Sedgefield 1

Rotherham Metro 9 v Huddersfield 2

Rotherham Metro 5 v Sheffield 4

Rotherham Metro 12 v Durham 1

Rotherham Metro 9 v Huddersfield 2

Rotherham Metro 0 v Sedgefield 14

Rotherham Metro 12 v Durham 3

Rotherham Metro 6 v Sheffield 4

 

We had quite a young squad for this competition again this year with only 2 x 2005 players, 7 x 2006 players and 2 x 2007 players in the squad.

First match was Sedgefield who was going to be by far the hardest team to beat this weekend. Sedgefield who had 8 x 05 players have an extremely strong squad in this age group as we know from prior meetings were always the tournament favourites. What a start to the tournament, we defended so well during this match, stuck to the tactics and managed to sneak a 2-1 win in a very impressive win.

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Second match against Huddersfield was comfortable for us taking an early lead, we worked well as a team with some very impressive team work to not only defend well but to create some very impressive goals.

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Third Match was Sheffield, this turned out to be allot closer than I had thought, mainly due to the ref who was not giving major or minor fouls which allowed the Sheffield players to get away with allot more than they would normally get away with. Having said that you have to adapt as a team and the tactics, good play and skill of our players shone through in the end.

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Fourth match against Durham was a comfortable win for us with some nice goals from the younger players in the squad, good team work to create some great goals.

Fifth Match was Huddersfield again, we played shocking the first half of the match with the score hanging at 2-2. Bad passing, no structure, not playing as a team and I think abit of over confidence having beaten them quite easily earlier in the day contributed to a very poor half. After a half time boot up the bum we came out very strong and won the second half 7-0 to make the final score 9-2.

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Sixth Match was a re-run of the first against Sedgefield but totally different again, they started like a bullet. Fitness and poor passing from us resulted in Sedgefield running away with the game. Poor passes resulting in Sedgefield hitting us on the break every time and their speed and fitness was too much for us. Lost 14-0.

Seventh match was a straight forward win with pretty much all the younger players playing the full match and again proving far too strong for the Durham team Final score 12-3.

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Eight Match was against Sheffield, a change in tactics resulted in a few goals early in the game for us, still a tight game but a convincing win again for us securing the silver medal. 6-4 win.

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Summary.

Finishing second to Sedgefield is fantastic, 7 wins from 8 matches. Sedgefield who also won 7 out of their 8 matches but beating us on goal difference. Some good polo played throughout the day, playing 8 matches (Equal tof 4 full matches) in one day is very hard for anyone to do let alone under 14’s but we managed it well. Fitness needs to improve overall, and still some silly mistakes by not passing to a face or accurate passing but I was extremely pleased with our performance.

Well done to every player for their effort and commitment and with us only losing 2 x players for next year’s tournament and Sedgefield losing 8 it is looking good for next year as long as we commit to train hard over the next 12 months.

Thank you to Theresa for team managing on the day and Special thanks goes to the parents who without your support we would not be able to produce such good players. Hopefully these players will go on to strengthen our National league squads in the coming years and help us to achieve our goals of playing Div 1 in both the Ladies and men’s leagues.

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Great Year for our players in the 2019 nags this year.

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Under 17's Girls played for Sheffield and won Gold beating 

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Emma Jackson (Rotherham Metro)

Emily Crossley (Rotherham Metro)

Poppy Stephenson (Rotherham Metro)

Laura Skelton (Rotherham Metro)

 

City of Sheffield were crowned U17 girls champions at the Swim England Water Polo National Age Group Championships 2019, easing past City of Liverpool 18-9 in the final at Ponds Forge.

It took just over a minute for Sheffield to assert their dominance as Emma Jackson finished off a quick breakaway for the opening goal of the game.

They were 3-0 ahead inside five minutes as Emily Crossley doubled their lead, before Jackson scored her second of the game.

Sheffield didn’t relent and their hunger paid off as Poppy Stephenson reacted quickest to a rebound to make it 4-0 shortly after.

The Sheffield side fully deserving of a 12-3 half-time lead.

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Emma Jackson was also in fine form in front of goal, adding another two goals before the main break.

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They did pull a goal back through Eva Howarth, but Anna Motley scored two more goals for Sheffield and Jackson grabbed another to give them a 15-4 lead.

Emma Jackson finished with six to seal a comfortable 18-9 win.

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Under 19's Girls played under Rotherham and finished 2nd to take silver.

 

Having sailed through the semi final beating Liverpool in a comfortable win Rotherham played Otter in the final.  Unfortunately a very strong otter team pushed Rotherham Metro out of first spot with a 14-8 win.

 

Rotherham Metro goal scorers, Amelia Peters 2, Emma Jackson 1, Sasha Tonks 1, Pia Tonks 4.

 

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Sheffield finish strongly for bronze in the Under 19's

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George Jackson (Rotherham Metro)

Samuel Swainson (Rotherham Metro)

Oliver Vodden (Rotherham Metro)

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Having lost the semifinal to the eventual winners Newton Abbot we played Watford in the Bronze medal match.  City of Sheffield started and finished well to win the U19 boys bronze medal.

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Two goals to Ben Stephenson and one to Oscar Kelly put Sheffield 3-1 ahead at the end of the first period and their three goals in the final period wrapped up an 8-4 win.

Stephenson finished with five goals of his own, with Lewis Waite and Oliver Vodden also on the score sheet.

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Watford 4
(Atkinson 2, Gulen 2)
City of Sheffield 8
(Stephenson 5, Kelly 1, Waite 1, Vodden 1)

 

 

 

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Boys U18 (Born 2001) Inter Regional Champs 2018

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Swim England North East Boys U18 won the Silver medal at the weekend when they competed in the U18 inter regionals in Blackpool. Match Results were as follows:

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North East 6 v 6 North west tigers
North East 7 v 10 South West
North East 18 v 3 London Sharks
North East 11 v 4 Ireland

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North East MVP – Ben Stephenson

 

We were fortunate enough to have the following players selected from Rotherham Metro water polo club selected to play in this extremely strong squad:-  George jackson, samuel Swainson and Oliver Vodden.

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This competition was clearly going to be a tight hard fought affair. The last time these age groups met NE finished fourth behind NW, SW and London—all three of which were here again this year along with national squad of Ireland. In addition we had possibly the youngest squad there with only 5 of our players 2001—the rest being 2002 and 2003.

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We couldn’t have asked for a more difficult opener —winners of 2016 the NW. The NE quickly went 2 goals down and the NW looked confident and in control. But the NE boys are not just good players they are determined battlers. They dug in hard in what proved to be a tense and exciting game finishing at 6-6 and the NE finishing the stronger side and could have easily pinched it at the end.

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Unfortunately due to an unlucky draw the boys then only had one hours rest before playing the runners up of 2016 the SW. The exertions of a tough first game and the fact that this was the SW first game showed and NE soon found themselves 4-0 down and facing a rampant looking SW. But our boys’ resilience,skill and determination came through and they fought their way back to level terms. This had been a brilliant performance but by the final period they had little left in the tank and the SW edged in front to take the game 10-7.

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On Sunday the NE dispatched with London with some style scoring 18 with London only managing to breach our defences 3 times. In our final game against Ireland the game was quite tight in the first half but then the superior fitness and quality of the NE boys came through and we came out comfortable winners.

So a highly commendable silver medal was won by NE. I was immensely proud of all the players. They worked their heart and soul out – showed fabulous commitment and played some excellent water polo—and had they had a bit more luck could well have taken gold. This was not only a great team performance but every individual played and behaved outstandingly and were a credit to our region.
But well done South West who had some fabulous individual goalscorers and came out worthy winners.

Report by Martin Kelly NE Head Coach

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Girls U18 (Born 2001) Inter Regional Champs 2018

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Congratulations to Emma Jackson, Emily Crossley, lucy Hobman.  Issobel Dendle, Alex Robinson and Poppy Stephenson from Rotherham Metro Water polo club for making the North East squad.

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The North East girls final game was against a very strong West Midlands team and it was a learning curve for our very young squad.

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Well done to the girls who had the youngest squad in the competition

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Lancaster 2005+ Tournament December 2017

 

This year we took a strong team over to the 5th annual water polo development tournament hosted by Lancaster City Swimming and Water Polo Club. It was there biggest one so far with over 50 games taking place throughout the day.  

 

Rotherham Metro 8   v  0  Radcliffe Black

Rotherham Metro 4   v  7  Sedgefield

Rotherham Metro 12 v 0  Kendal

Rotherham Metro 4   v  0  Tyldesley

Rotherham Metro 7   v  2  Liverpool

Rotherham Metro 5   v  0  Lancaster

 

Semi-final

Rotherham Metro 4   v  3  Sheffield

 

Final

Rotherham Metro 2   v  3 Sedgefield

 

The day was all about developing our young water polo players and it was great to see so many young players taking part. 

 

The top three teams were;

 

1st  - Sedgefield

2nd -  Rotherham

3rd -  Bridgefield 

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2004+ Inter Regionals Boys  2017

 

Huge congratulations to Henry Jackson,  Dylan Hobman from Rotherham metro water polo club and the rest of the 2004+ North East squad who managed to finish the weekend off with a silver medal.

 

North East   3   v 2  Scotland

North East   4   v 4 South East

North East   5   v 2 West Midlands

North East   10 v 2 North West Ravens

 

Semi Final

North East   6 v 4 North West Tigers

 

Final

North East   1 v 5 West Midlands

 

After beating Scotland, north west ravens, north west tigers, west midlands, drawing against south west only to lose on the final to a strengthened west midlands.

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