Semi Finals Set After a Weekend of Quarter Finals
Four tightly fought matches took place over the weekend of 9 –10 July at Cowdray Park Polo Club in the race to the finish line of The Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup for the British Open Championships. Saturday’s Quarter Finals saw wins from Valiente and Zacara who both batteld fiercely for their Semi Final slots. HB Polo put up a good opposition to Lyndon Lea’s Zacara side, forcing them to play hard for their eventual 12-9 win. Clarke and Green’s match against Valiente was somewhat more one-sided with no surprises to see Cambiaso take his team through to an impressive 14-7 win over Nick Clarke’s side.
Sunday’s matches were even more exciting with La Indiana vs Talandracas up first. Both teams are sporting players playing well above their HPA handicaps Polito Pieres and Guillermo ‘Sapo’ Caset for Talandracas (both 9 in England and 10 elsewhere around the world) and Agustin ‘Tincho’ Merlos, Nic Roldan and Julian de Lusarreta for La Indiana (all playing one goal below their international handicaps), it looked like it would prove to be a close match, but losing 6-1 at half-time Eduard Carmignac unexpectedly retired from the match to be replaced by young ‘ringer’ Charles Cooney. This substitution changed the game dynamic and Talandracas closed the opposition down and brought the scores back to a respectable loss against La Indiana with a final score of 9-6. It was another story for reigning Gold Cup champions King Power Foxes who were unable to race to an easy win. Britannia El Remanso, determined not to be knocked out of the tournament in which they have played so well, played a blinder forcing the Foxes onto the back foot by going 4-0 up in the first chukka. Throughout the following four chukkas, King Power Foxes managed to battle it back to a 10-10 draw at the end of the fifth chukka. In the sixth they finally took the lead to sneak an 11-10 win which sees them through to the Semi Finals to play against Valiente.
The Semi Finals will take place on Wednesday 13 July. First up will be Pieres vs Cambiaso as King Power Foxes take on Valiente leaving space in Sunday’s Final for either La Indiana or Zacara who will be playing their Semi Final later in the day.
For a rundown of previous fixtures and results click here and to get the ‘skinny’ report on how each team arrived at the Quarter Finals click here.
Photograph: Cambiaso cannons the ball through the posts for Valiente. By ©www.imagesofpolo.com
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