Mainland Canoe Polo

Nemesis at Art Deco

by Tonille Crombie, Nemesis team member.
15 March 2005

On the weekend of 19th-20th February, the Burnside Canoe Polo Club women�s team, 'Nemesis' travelled to the glorious Hawkes Bay to attend the now legendary Art Deco Canoe Polo competition. The entire team (plus extras) was accommodated by Claire�s fantastic family just 20 minutes from the venue. Due to the popularity of this event, and subsequent large number of entries, the competition was run from 6am to 8pm each day.

In the women's A grade there were four top teams: Nemesis, Valkyries (Palmerston North), Divas (Auckland) and Sirens (Wellington). Only one round of play-offs was contested with the top two teams moving through to the final, and the bottom two playing-off for 3rd and 4th. Nemesis beat Divas by one goal, drew to Valkyries and lost to Sirens. Valkyires also beat Divas and lost to Sirens. This meant that the team that moved through to 2nd place was the team with the most goals scored overall. This unfortunately was not Nemesis.

Nemesis went on to play Divas for 3rd and 4th place and again had a draw. With no extra time available, the game was decided by the team that was winning at half time, which was, again, unfortunately for the Christchurch contingent, not Nemesis. So, even though the sun shone, and there were some well played moments and glimpses of fine-tuned tactics, Nemesis looked decidely dull landing a 4th place overall. However, the opportunity to take on lessons learned and identify key areas for improvement is always a valuable experience. The competition was won by the Valkyries by one goal only.

Nemesis now gears up to participate in the New Zealand Canoe Polo National League Championships home and away series, then gets set to face-off against other national teams in the National League finals in June - hopefully with some informal pre-competition games with North Island teams to boost game time preparation prior to going head-to-head in the National League Championships.

Thanks to Phil, Kris, Alan and HBCP for hosting another fantastic Art Deco comp.

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