Scottish Cup Champions: Men and Women triumph!
Release date : Sunday March 16, 2008
Written by : Neal
Rayner
Men's second team finally wins!
The men's and women's first teams finished the season with huge wins in the Scottish Cup Tournament.
The men advanced to the final with an easy 19-1 win over RGU and a thrashing of a strong Glasgow team.
The final was a tight contest made rougher by the fact that Edinburgh was also the host of the tournament and appeared to put a wee too much effort into being a great social host the night before the final.
The Final Match saw a spirited game against a tough and determined St. Andrew's squad that was joined by the fiesty Bulgarian Veslyn Voynov.
The match was close the whole way and saw some great battles including brutal synchro tangling in the pit by Voynov and Jannis Pierrakos that resulted in the Bulgarian chipping a tooth. The score for both teams could have been much higher had it not been for the sensational goalkeeping on both ends. St. Andrew's veteran keeper Dave 'boy D' Fleming gave Edinburgh's prolific scorer James Scobie fits as he stopped 6 of his first 7 shots. Likewise Edinburgh's ginger wall of goalkeeping, aka Dave Armstrong made up for the sloppy defensive counters by his teammates by repeatedly stopping 1-on-nobodies and 2-on-1s.
In the end Edinburgh's men simply had too much firepower to be stopped and the game and season were signed off with captain Euan Martin's brilliant finishing offspeed goal.
The ladies also triumphed in the final with a solid win over a vengeful Dundee squad. Earlier in the season, the women's Scottish league was decided when Edinburgh somehow squeaked past Dundee and won by a goal in a match that was led most of the way by Dundee. Today, it was Lucy MacGregor's last match for Edinburgh after founding the women's club seven years and a few degrees ago. She led the team in scoring and fabulous defensive plays, a demonstration of why she has been among the best Scottish Women's players in history. However, her biggest contribution has been in the way she inspired the team to play at a higher level and that was apparent as everyone played well.
The Men's Second team had earlier risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the night before and triumphed for the first time all season with a win over RGU for sixth place. Henry Raley shocked everyone with two brilliant games in goals: spectacular diving saves, one on nobody domination and penalty blocking stardom.
<img src="http://www.edinburghwaterpolo.com/upload/ScotCup.jpg" border="0" alt=" " width="500" height="375" />
