Water polo season underway at Narrabri Aquatic Centre

An exciting new era in Narrabri’s storied sporting history officially got underway on Sunday as the Narrabri Dolphins Water Polo Club’s inaugural season began.

The club formed back in February after local resident Dean Clarke, who is a former player in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area, decided he would attempt to bring the sport to Narrabri.

The Dolphins’ maiden competition has attracted more players than Clarke had thought possible as four senior teams were formed as well as two junior teams. They will play across a 15-round regular season ahead of a two-week finals series in March.

The two under-14s teams produced an epic season opener on Sunday as Kaputar edged out Namoi 10-9.

The senior games were then won by Barwon and Nandewar as Barwon downed Kurrajong 9-2 and Nandewar defeated Wilga 6-3.

The Dolphins’ president, Clarke, told The Courier that he was impressed with the standard on display in the pool during round one and said that the day ran quite smoothly with the assistance of Water Polo NSW officials Libby Magaan, Taylah Power, Katie Robinson, Ella Murray and Gail Salter, who were in attendance.

“I’m actually really happy with the numbers,” Clarke said.

“We’ve got more players than I was expecting, and since the weekend, we’ve had more registrations come through as well.

“You can have up to 13 players per team, so those extra players will go into the already-formed teams.

“Our first games went really good when you consider the bulk of the players are at a beginner level.

“It was quite a good display of water polo. I thought it would have been scrappy and unstructured, but it was very structured and they looked like proper games of water polo.

“With training and playing the game more and everyone getting that bit more experience, I’d like to think the games will all look like full on proper games of water polo come the start of the second half of the season.”

The five Water Polo NSW officials arrived in Narrabri on Saturday and they ran a refereeing theory/rules/coaching/table duties session as well as skill sessions, which Clarke said were quite beneficial for the club.

When Sunday finally rolled around, the players were all keen to get into the pool for their round one games after months of come-and-try and/or training sessions.

The under-14s match was contested across six-minute quarters, and the Namoi side entered the first break ahead 3-2 after Chelsea Clarke found the back of the net twice and her teammate Lexi Fernance also scored, while Kaputar’s Charlie Croaker and Elsie Bennett netted for their team.

However, Kaputar had gone into the half-time break on level terms after Ruby Irwin scored twice and Charlie Croaker netted again, while Maddison Connole got on the scoresheet for the Namoi team and Chelsea Clarke put her third away.

That made the score 5-all at the main break, before Kaputar outscored their opponents 3-1 in the third term to go into the final quarter ahead 8-6.

Charlie Croker scored again in the third and teammate Elke Collins was able to find the back of the net twice.

Namoi’s goal was scored by Oliver Ford.

Namoi then managed to outscore Kaputar three goals to two in the last quarter, however, Kaputar held on to win 10-9.

Maddison Connole struck twice for Namoi to finish with a hat-trick while teammate Chelsea Clarke scored her fourth.

Charlie Croaker netted a fourth in the final term for Kaputar and teammate Ruby Irwin completed her hat-trick with the other goal.

The senior games were then played across four nine-minute quarters.

In Barwon’s big win over Kurrajong, the score was 7-1 at half-time after Barwon led 3-0 at the first break.

Alex Mison netted a first-half hat-trick for his side and teammates Dean Clarke and Karla Carruthers scored twice, while Katie Robinson got the Kurrajong team on the board in the second quarter.

Clarke scored the only two goals of the third quarter as Barwon went into the final quarter leading 9-1, and then Robinson netted the last goal of the game as the score finished 9-2.

The second senior game saw Wilga go into the quarter-time break ahead 1-0 over Nandewar, with Carruthers opening the scoring for her side after she had filled in for Barwon.

Wilga scored again in the second term through Lauren Eather, but they went into half-time down 3-2 after Harry Bennett bagged a double for the Nandewar side and his teammate Pip Donaldson also scored.

Both sides scored a goal each in the third as Clarke netted while filling in for Nandewar and Sam Donaldson got on the scoresheet for Wilga.

That made it 4-3 heading into the final quarter as the contest was still either side’s to win, but Nandewar got the job done as Harry Bennett and Josh Taylor both found the back of the net to make the final score 6-3.

Three more matches will be played this Sunday during round two.

The under-14s match will kick off the day as Namoi and Kaputar meet again ahead of the senior contests, which will see Nandewar challenge Barwon and Wilga go head-to-head with Kurrajong.