The Columba College Junior Water Polo team headed to Blenheim last week to compete in the Junior SISS Water Polo tournament. It was a big adventure and an equally big learning experience for this young group of athletes.

Thank you to Coach Rob Jefferies for the following article:

The Junior Water Polo team departed early Monday morning on an epic road trip to Blenheim for the Junior South Island Secondary Schools Water Polo tournament. Our tour guide Daryl, with co-driver Sandy, kept the girls safe and entertained during the approximate 1,600 km’s covered returning to Dunedin on Saturday evening (The music choice endured during the road trip is best left as a topic for another article!).

The Columba Junior Water Polo team is a very young team that came together approximately 12 months ago, and includes three Year 8 students making them the youngest team at the tournament by far. The progress during the past 12 months has been amazing due to the majority of players committing to both water polo and swimming training. In addition, most players had not been to a water polo tournament before and did not know what to expect. This was seen as a development opportunity for the Columba team who would be on a steep learning curve regarding the level of water polo played elsewhere.

Our first game was against St Hilda’s and after leading the game at half time, Columba ended up with a close loss – the girls were gutted. We then faced the top team from Christchurch, Villa Maria, who were a step above our team and were stacked with an age group NZ swimming representative, a NZ age group water polo representative and a number of other strong & experienced Canterbury players. Nonetheless Columba were competitive at times and displayed grit and determination. The team never gave up but were beaten soundly. The final round robin game was against a classy Marlborough Girls College team. The Marlborough Girls team is also the U16 Marlborough rep team and included two NZ age group representatives. Our Columba girls tried hard and were competitive in patches, but the strength of the opposition was too great as Marlborough had the luxury of strong water polo players and swimmers across their entire squad.

Our final game was a 3rd/4th playoff against St Hilda’s Collegiate. Columba played outstanding water polo for the majority of the match and led into the final quarter, only for St. Hilda's to score in the final minute to tie the game. This led to an exciting penalty shoot out that Columba eventually lost.

The team had fun, experienced tears, laughter and disappointment during the course of the trip, but most importantly learned a great deal which can only make us stronger. Up against teams that have been together for 5-6 years, Columba has improved and developed greatly over a relatively short period of time! Whilst the results were not what we wanted, the team never gave up and we as a coaching group (Rob, Brenna and Isaac) are extremely proud of every player and the efforts they put in. Our journey has only just begun so watch this space!

A massive thank you to our fabulous coaches, manager, and wonderful group of parents who all travelled to Blenheim to support the team and provide much needed encouragement and motivation for our players. The trip would not have been possible without the support of you all. 

If you are a swimmer, have you ever considered giving Water Polo a try? We hope to see you join the Columba Water Polo team in 2024!