SA Canoe Polo Champs

Following a successful open day and Gauteng trials, held at Dabulamanzi Canoe Club, 5 Canoe Polo teams from Gauteng travelled to Pietermaritzburg to attend the 2011 SA Canoe Polo Champs.

The KZN teams are traditionally the strongest in the country and most of their senior members are chosen for the SA Canoe Polo Protea team.  This year, owing to the fantastic development that the sport has undergone, Gauteng teams were able to give the KZN teams a run for their money.

This years SA Champs saw 6 mens teams, 3 Ladies teams and 2 junior teams taking part in the tournament, with 6 teams from Gauteng.  The winning mens team was the indomitable KZN Mens A team, with the KZN Ladies team also winning the ladies events.

In the junior sessions the Gauteng Junior Mens team, captained by Tyler Gibson (who also won the award for best junior player) gave a sterling performance and narrowly lost by one goal to the KZN team.  Although Gauteng teams did not win all the games the improvement in performance from teams that had only been selected a short time before was remarkable.  KZN teams are in for a shock if development continues in this fashion!

Overall results from the finals were:
Gauteng Junior Ladies vs KZN Junior Ladies: Score 3-6
Gauteng Junior Men vs KZN Junior Men: Score 5-6
Gauteng Ladies A vs KZN Ladies A: Score 7-1
Gauteng Men A vs KZN Men A: Score 1-9

Please feel free to come and play canoe polo on Monday and Wednesday afternoons from 5pm and Sunday mornings from 9am. 
All that is required is a towel and change of clothes for after the game and clothes to play and get wet in (shorts and a T-shirt will do).

Image: Chris de Bree of the Gauteng mens A team deflects the ball from the goal attempted by Western Province Mens A team.