After two convincing wins against Tyldesley and Royton, Warrington’s 12 & under team reach the Bolton and District final held at Broughton Pool at Salford. Playing the usual format for this age group, with 5 outfield players, plus a goal keeper with a shortened pitch and two halves of ten minutes.
Warrington started the game attacking the deep end. Warrington started well as Connor Lynch was left in marked on the arc and took his chance well. Bolton School with ten players soon equalised as they were allowed too much room by our defence. With less than two minutes played Bolton School scored again to make it 1-2. The game started to hot up with two exclusion fouls been given against Bolton School, unfortunately Warrington missed the chance to score on the power plays but looked the better team. With 6.33 shown on the clock Connor Lynch noticed the goal keeper off his line and executed a sublime lob shot into the Bolton School goal to make it 2-2. Two minutes later a fast break by Warrington and a quick ball to Molly Ashton and a really excellent goal. The organiser Geoff Holmes later said it was the best piece of play he had seen at this age and has said he will mention Molly by name in the Bolton & District report he was so impressed. The half finished 3-2 to Warrington and a really positive half time team talk.
The second half started well as Warrington were awarded a penalty. Ben Dailey calmly converted the penalty and Warrington were 4-2 up. However the score board showed 3-3 and it was latter discovered the match sheet incorrectly showed Bolton School being awarded the goal. From that point Warrington started to chase the game when actually we were 4-2 in the lead with five minutes to play. Possession was lost too easily on some occasions and Bolton School who are always very strong on the counter attack scored four goals in three minutes. Daniel Farini scored in the middle of the four goals and Ben Dailey had a goal disallowed. The final Bolton came with only 40 seconds left to play. The final score was 6-5 to Bolton School although the match sheet showed 7-4.
All eight players from Warrington worked really hard and at times played some excellent water polo particularly in the first 15 minutes. They were duly awarded their silver medals and now look forwards to completing the final games of the season, including Bolton School away!
Warrington 12 & under’s with their silver medals
Warrington’s Team included:- Luke Atkinson GK, Ben Dailey (1), Molly Boniface-Ashton (1), Connor Lynch (2), Daniel Farini (1), Katie Bowater, Dom Richards and Jake Williams.