Nic Molyneux, class of 2004

The South Africa Men's Water Polo Report from Nic Molyneux (2004): A Personal Account

When I was 13 I was selected for the Western Province u14 team; since then I represented every Provincial and National age group team. When I was 16 I was selected for the SA u18B team and the following year I represented the SA u18 team in Australia for an "u18 Tri-Nations Tournament" between South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. At 18 I was elected WP u18 Captain for the SA Schools Provincial tournament and went on to represent the SA u20 team at a Six Nations Tournament in Gorzow, Poland.

I continued my water polo throughout my post-school career, playing in various different teams, most notably playing for a club team in Italy's professional league; Serie A2, for 7 months and also representing SA at the Student World Games in Bangkok, 2007. The World University Games was the greatest tournament of my career to date.

Preliminary World League Qualifications - Tunisia, Africa 2010

My first tournament playing for the South African Men's team was the African qualifying leg of the FINA World League tournament. The tournament was held in Tunis, Tunisia. Swimming SA had just appointed a new coach, Brad Rowe, who I used to play for when I lived in Durban so it was great to be playing for him again and especially representing South Africa.

We flew out of Johannesburg on 15 June and landed in Tunisia, after catching a connecting flight in Dubai, on 16 June. There were four teams at this World League Qualifier; Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and South Africa and we played each country twice.

Our opening match was against Algeria and standing on the pool side singing the national anthem before the match started was certainly a memorable moment. The match started off badly for us and we conceded the 1st goal. As a team who had never played together at any level, this was quite a shaky start. After that very quick wake up call we got our goal scoring campaign off and didn't look back. We ended the game with a resounding 19 - 3 win.

In our next match we played against Morocco, another fairly easy match which we happily won 22 - 2. This wasn't a very challenging match and one where we could again get to know how each other played and work out the kinks in our game play and strategies.

The last game of the first round of matches was against Tunisia. The last time South Africa played against Tunisia was more than 10 years ago and we were on the losing side, going ahead to this match we were not entirely sure how the game would unfold. The match was tough with the score staying fairly level throughout; when we scored they would reply with a goal shortly after. The crowd was really getting behind their team and there was even a point where when we had possession the crowd was jeering, whistling and even booing us, a very hostile environment playing against the home team indeed. Towards the end we started gaining the ascendancy and managed to hold on to a slender lead to win 11 - 8.

The 2nd match against Algeria proved to be a similar one to the 1st although this time around we were resting some of the senior players and giving the youngest more water time, resulting in a score-line of 17 - 5. A much closer result compared to the 1st game but we expected to win and to be honest the bigger game was against Tunisia the following day, so rest was the order of the day. We went into the game against Morocco, as we did in the previous game, resting our main players. With most of our senior players on the sidelines getting some well deserved rest we still managed to beat Morocco 19 - 3.

In our last match to end the tournament we faced off against Tunisia. Looking ahead, we knew we were in for a tough fight as we had a hard time beating them in the 1st match. This time however the team was more cohesive and better prepared to face the Tunisians. We started well, putting a few goals past them early. From there we controlled the game and in the 3rd quarter we had pretty much sealed the win by scoring 4 goals to 1. The match ended 10-4 in our favour. A sweet and solid victory; one that sent South Africa on its way to the FINA World League Finals in Serbia. Our goal from the start of this tour was to win all our matches and qualify for the Serbian competition. Goal achieved. My 1st tour in SA colours was a great success, one which I will remember for the rest of my life and I even managed to score 11 goals in my 1st six games, 3 on debut to which makes it all the more memorable. Greater tests lay ahead though. The matches in Serbia would not prove as easy as we found in Tunisia.

FINA Super World League Finals - Nis, Serbia 2010

Our draw for the FINA Super World League Finals was a tough one, but nothing we didn't expect, after all only the top 8 eight countries qualify from around the world. We were drawn with Serbia (as host nation, current World Champions and our opening match), Australia and Croatia. From the time we arrived in Serbia we were treated the same way as our SA rugby and cricket counterparts. We had a police escort from the airport to our hotel in Nis which is a 3 hour bus drive from Belgrade and a police escort for every trip around the city, from the hotel to the pool and back. This was quite something for us coming from a country that hardly knew we were representing South Africa at a major sporting event to a country that was prepared enough to even have police escorts for us, a welcome change to say the least.

As I mentioned, our opening match was against the host country and reigning World Champions, Serbia. This was a "baptism of fire" into proper International water polo (the Tunisia tour was great but nothing compared to playing against the best players in the world). I was picked in the starting 7 and took the swim-off to start the match. I lost the swim-off and the Serbian attack that followed resulted in a Penalty which they duly converted. From there the Serbian train rumbled through us and never looked like stopping till the final whistle. We were resoundingly beaten 0 - 22.

Moving on from there we had to look ahead to our next match which was against the Australians. A perennial rugby derby between us Southern Hemisphere teams but unfortunately in water polo they are streaks ahead of us at this point. We put up a better fight this time but it wasn't enough, we had patches of brilliance and moments we could take forward to the next matches but we still made too many mistakes and afforded the Aussies too many easy goals. The final score was 4 - 19.

Still no goals for me but that would change in our next match against Croatia. Croatia is another European powerhouse and the result wasn't dissimilar to that against Serbia but this time we managed to get a goal to add some respect to the scoreboard. In the 3rd quarter we got an extra-man, we passed the ball around a couple of times and when the ball came to me for the second time I took a chance and shot to the keeper's left and just beat him. This was a goal I will never forget, my first goal against a proper opponent in an International match at a major competition. When that goal went in the crowd roared and cheered so loudly, it sounded as though we had just won the Olympic Gold Medal or something. All they had seen for the whole match was goals going in for Croatia and it was getting quite boring for the spectators, finally we had broken the duck and they loved us for it. The crowd will always support the under dog and that was quite evident when we scored that goal. But as we did before we made too many mistakes and didn't defend their attacks properly and conceded too many goals. Final score: 1 - 21.

That was the pool games over, now we had to play Montenegro in seeded Quarterfinals. Montenegro won the FINA World League in 2009 and is definitely a force to be reckoned with. The game started off well and we even took the lead in the first couple of minutes, 1 - 0. This they quickly rectified and scored 4 goals without reply in the 1st quarter. The 2nd quarter was a real beating though, as the Montenegro team kicked into a higher gear and scored 10 unanswered goals. In the 3rd quarter we did better, I managed to get a shot off across the face of goal when I don't think the keeper had any idea the shot was coming. It beat him and that was our second goal of the match, another very memorable goal for me. The rest of the game was business as usual for our opponents who ran away with it in the end to win 2 - 21.

Spain was our next opponent. They came second at last years' World Champs to Serbia so they are no slouch in the water. We started well again like we did against Montenegro but Spain was very composed. We managed to restrict their scoring opportunities far better this time which was a very positive step forward for us. Towards the end of the match we still hadn't scored and Spain was trying desperately to keep a clean sheet against us. Eventually an opportunity presented itself much the same way as it did against Croatia, another extra-man and when the ball came to me for the second time I took the chance and shot cross-cage, beating the keeper on his right this time. After adding a bit of respect to the scoreboard we let our defence slip and Spain scored a few cheap and easy goals to go into double digits.

The final whistle blew leaving the score at 1 - 12.

The last match of this campaign was against China. Before the match the record between our two countries over the years was 2 wins each and no draws. The 1st quarter was a real battle with the scoreboard ticking over constantly and the lead changing over a couple times. 6 - 4 was the score at the end of the 1st quarter and going into the 2nd quarter I was optimistic that we could win this game. We put in a solid effort and only conceded 1 goal in the 2nd quarter but we didn't score anything, a complete antithesis of the 1st quarter. If that quarter was sparse on goals then the 3rd was even worse, it ended 0 all. It all came down to the last quarter for us to mount a counter attack, now or never. Unfortunately we just couldn't pull it off. They scored early to put any hope of a comeback out of the question, I scored one more goal for us to pull the score closer at 5 - 8 but a late flurry from the Chinese and some simple mistakes from us, who were taking bigger risks to score more goals, saw them move into double digits plus one more. 5 - 11 it ended.

The final was a really great match. Serbia (World Champs) played against Montenegro (World League 2009 winners); just 3 years ago these two teams competed as one nation at the Beijing Olympic Games and finished third.

The match seemed to be on a see-saw, one minute Montenegro looked in complete control and the next moment Serbia was surging ahead and appeared unstoppable. A last minute goal from Montenegro levelled the match at 12 - 12. Because of the nature of this tournament there was no extra-time; the game went straight to penalties to decide the winner. Both teams scored their opening penalties but Montenegro slipped up in the following 2 penalties while the Serbian players kept their composure to score all their following shots and take the gold medal.