This weekend I played for NEM-OC (formerly referred to by me as the ONE Team) at the BOA's Nautilus competition at Pond's Forge in Sheffield. Being a new entrant to the competition, we had to start at the bottom in division 5. Slightly disheartening was the fact that the only team we've previously played against (in fact, the only time we've ever played together as a team) was against Nero's from Sunderland, who beat us fairly comprehensively. Fortunately, they were in division 5 for more or less the same reason we were (they hadn't played at Nautilus for a while, if ever), so the hope was that we'd be more evenly matched against the other division 5 teams.

We got there early to watch some of the matches from the morning session, and to see how the in-water substitutions were going to work. That all seemed fine, and we got signed in, tattooed (with magic marker - we had to have our player numbers on our arms) and had our equipment inspected. So far so good. Unfortunately, we were a bit slow off the mark for the first game (coincidentally against Nero's). As I now know (having read the captains brief this morning), there was only a minute between games, and play would start regardless of whether teams were ready or not. As a result, I think we started with about 3 people in the water, and Nero's scored before we had a full team. Things didn't get much better, and the final score was something like 10-0 to Nero's. And we got warned about in-play substitutions, to make sure the retiring player had surfaced in the subs box before the new player left.

Things picked up after that - we'd all got warmed up and woken up, just about worked out how to play in a 3 metre deep pool and started to gel together as a team. The next 3 games were quite close - we beat Inverness (although I gather there was some controversy about that - not quite sure what though), lost to Orkney, and beat West London C. To be quite honest, I think any of the games could have gone either way - I don't have the scores, but I reckon there can't have been more than one or two goals difference in each game. After 3 games with only one match break between them, we then had an hour off before our final game against Solent Viragos. We'd kind of figured this was going to be an easy game, as it looked like they'd been beaten by everyone else, but although we won, it was hard work. They may not have had the speed and power that we had, but I think they probably had better puck skills, and every attack seemed to be countered by several of their team.

Nautilus Division 5 Bronze Medal!And the overall result? Nero's won, unsurprisingly, and I think they only conceded one goal in all their matches. Orkney came second, and we came third - much to the dismay of Inverness!

Considering we'd only played together once before, I'm quite chuffed with the result. I think we could have beaten Orkney, but equally Inverness could have beaten us. More time playing together would help, and I do think we improved throughout the day (up until the last game, when we'd cooled down and people were feeling rather tired).

It was also nice to run into some old acquaintances, Neil Dixon and Jo Pitchforth, from my days at Batley, and to put names to faces of people at the BOA I've been conversing with over email - namely Phil Lawrence and Phil Thompson.

The overall division 5 placings were as follows:

  • 1st: Nero's
  • 2nd: Orkney
  • 3rd: NEM-OC
  • 4th: Inverness
  • 5th: West London C
  • 6th: Solent Viragos

As and when I get the results tables (and the NEM-OC team photo Ali's dad took on Claire's camera), I'll try and post them up here.

What's next for NEM-OC? Well, we should be playing in the Nationals later on this year, but I've been asked if we want to play at MOT (Manchester Octopush Tournament) at the start of March, so I'm hoping Jamie and Gareth can be persuaded to get the team together for that. Meanwhile, next week sees the start of training at York Uni after the Christmas break. Hopefully I'll have recovered from Nautilus by then!