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Water polo has a reputation as the most violent of sports. In any event, it is not for the meek or fey. The rules are complex, but let me précis: if you have the ball, get rid of it.
Opponents are allowed to do whatever they want to get the ball back, short of drawing a gun and shooting you in the head. Grappling, grabbing and wrestling are all common; punching, kicking and dunking underwater are less legal, but equally widespread.
“You’ve got 14 players to watch and only two referees,” explains Russ McKinnon, a 58-year-old Australian water polo enthusiast reporting for the Olympic News Service. “Rules is rules. You do what you can get away with. If the referee doesn’t see, great.”
McKinnon may be filing copy these days, but he is a legend of the sport, having played for more than four decades, representing his country as a player, a coach, a referee and an administrator.
“About 30 years ago it was a lot heavier,” he says. “You only had one referee back in those days, so all sorts of things would go on.”
So does the physical intimidation sometimes encroach on places the gentleman dare not mention? “Oh, yes,” McKinnon replies. “The Sheilas are even worse. They grab, and screw nipples, and all sorts.”
The buffeting is not limited to the ball carrier. Fouls are only given for off-the-ball contact if one player is seen to ‘gain an advantage’, which means plenty of robust and surreptitious sparring goes unpunished.
“There is a lot of contact underwater,” says Serbian player Filip Filipovic. “We are fighting to the limit. It’s all part of water polo. But it’s a wonderful sport.”
The crowd in the Water Polo Arena need little convincing of that. The noise is cacophonous as teams enter the arena for the day’s six matches. McKinnon explains the finer points of the game to me as we watch Australia v Italy.
“Now it’s an extra-man situation,” he explains as the referee blows his whistle for a foul and gestures an Australian towards an enclosure at the corner of the pool.
This is, in effect a 20-second sin-bin. Six times out of seven, Italy convert their extra man into a goal. They end up winning 8-5. One of the keys to the game, then, is drawing fouls.
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“You try and drag people out to you, so you can free up the situation,” McKinnon says. “The idea is to get the ball to the centre forward and get the defender sent out. Australia’s two forwards are very good at drawing fouls. Look, he did a bit of a Hollywood on him there ” Elements of water polo are uncannily similar to our own national sport.
Pass, create an opening, pull the trigger. Centre forwards manhandle each other as they await a cross. Simulation is a frequent and intractable problem.
In fact, one wonders idly, as Great Britain are pummelled, outwitted and vanquished by Romania, why we do not take water polo more seriously.
It was, after all, our sport once. In its early days in the late 19th century, it was more akin to rugby, with brute strength rather than skill being the key asset.
This was the version of the game at which Great Britain won its four Olympic golds, the last of them in 1920.
Gradually, water polo evolved from a game of force into a game of tactics. Passing and movement assumed more important roles. The balance of power in the sport shifted south and east, to the Mediterranean and to what would later become the Eastern Bloc.
In Britain, meanwhile, it withered and died. Not since 1956 had we even fielded a team at the Games.
“Water polo is a very Mediterranean sport,” says Drazen Brajdic, a journalist for the Croatian newspaper Vecernji List. “We have always been comfortable in the sea.
"In Dubrovnik, there is a competition called the ‘Wild League’, an amateur championship between all the beaches in the city. Lots of people come to watch – even some of the professionals.
“The former Yugoslavia won gold at Mexico City 1968 as well as in 1984 and 1988. Those teams were mostly built with Croatian players. Now, after the break-up, there are three teams – Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia – who are all very good. It just shows how strong the region is.”
Victories for Serbia, over reigning Olympic champions Hungary, and Croatia over Greece bear his words out.
“The goalkeeper is saving us today,” Brajdic mutters as Croatia hold on for a narrow 8-6 victory.
Great Britain, unfortunately, have not a hope of a medal, and are unlikely to for several years. Even more of a shame is how little the sport has managed to capture the public attention, languishing in the shadow of our more illustrious swimmers and divers.
It is a sport we could easily learn to love. Physicality, speed, skill, tension, and women tweaking each other’s nipples underwater. At the very least, you feel Channel Five would go for it.
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