The British water Polo League sponsored and hosted a friendly international match between England and Scotland senior men’s teams watched by around 1000 spectators at Ponds Forge, Sheffield on Sunday 11 February.

The match was held as the climax to the Super 5’s Women’s and Men’s league programme and featured many of the players in our top domestic teams.  Both teams are preparing for the Commonwealth Games Tournament to be held in March 23-30 September.  Both England and Scotland along with Wales have entered the Commonwealth event which will be held in Malta.

England made a storming start to the game racing into a 5-1 lead at half time. England’s first goal came after a smart save by goalkeeper Peter Pickford sparking a counter-attack, which led to the first of two goals in the first quarter for Jordan Elliot as England led 2-0 after the first quarter.

The second quarter saw an early goal by Dan Padden to make the score 3-0, and then Scotland’s Chris Campbell had the chance to reduce the lead but struck the England crossbar with a penalty. Ryan Padbury and Jake Vincent added further goals for England before Chris Campbell eventually claimed his team’s first goal just before the end of the second period from a man-up chance.

England’s Tom Curwen in action

The third quarter saw England extend their lead to 8-2, with goals from Tom Curwen, Jordan Elliot, for his third of the game, and England Captain Rob Parker. Josh Brown made his mark for Scotland with their second goal of the game.

Scotland demonstrated a final quarter revival that featured excellent goals from distance by Invicta’s Callum Bailey and the very promising junior Finlay Nesbitt. In reply, Rob Parker scored his second goal of the game cementing a 9-4 victory for England.

Both sides had players making their senior national debuts including for England, the GBR Olympian and England Captain Rob Parker, and Matt Madden & Tom Manley, who are both part of the GBR squad preparing to compete in the European Junior Qualification Tournament to be held in Manchester 11-13 May.

We streamed the game live, and the full match video is available for viewing below and on our YouTube channel at the following link; https://youtu.be/4rKx__EDMMU

All the pictures and clips of the action are here > https://www.flickr.com/gp/englandwaterpolo/9szv86

The BWPL Super 5’s event for men and women has two further rounds with matches scheduled for 3-4 March in Lancaster and the finals weekend at Haberdashers school near Watford on 24-25 March. Current women’s leaders Liverpool Lizards and men’s Solihull head their respective divisions going into the final two rounds of competition hoping to be crowned league champions for 2017/18.

England: Peter Pickford, Dan Paddon (1 goal), Chris Armstrong, Matt Madden, Joel Leighton, Jordan Elliot (3), Lewis Daly, Tom Curwen (1), Rob Parker (2), Jake Vincent (1), Ryan Padbury (1), Joel Abbott, Tom Manley.

Scotland: Bojan Donevski, Callum Bailey (1), Josh Brown (1), Chris Campbell (1), Neilson Rutherford, Ben Scott, Mario Alvarez, Lorcan Morgan, Matt Crighton, Finlay Nesbitt (1), Ali Campbell, Fraser Rutherford.

Referees Max and Damien

Referees: Damien Taylor, Max Gerasimov. Delegate: Steve O’Brien (Ireland).

Photographs courtesy of Trevor Hyde and the British Water Polo League

Live stream Courtesy of Water Polo England