Ken Short Festival day 3

 It was inevitable that the Highveld would eventually deliver one of its thunderstorm masterpieces and dump it on our Ken Short Festival, and that happened at about 2 O’clock on Saturday. It sent everyone scurrying for cover, and then had them hanging around, waiting to see if and when the action would resume.

The new lightning protocols that all schools have had to adopt prohibit a return to the field until half an hour after the last strike within a 15km radius of the school is recorded. That was nowhere close to happening at Jeppe on Saturday, so a damp and saddened bunch of boys and parents had an early afternoon off.

The mere fact that no-one wanted to go home and the teams due to play were eagerly waiting for the all-clear shows that despite this being a “friendly” festival, showed that the boys and coaches are very competitive and wanted nothing more than to get at each other.

Earlier, the action seemed to have tightened up on the 1st two days' showing, with closer score-lines and some very competitive games.

I know we shouldn’t be looking at who is winning and who is losing but, so far, Bishops, Rondebosch and Michaelhouse have been the standout teams on display. All three recorded comfortable wins before the day came to a premature end, preventing them from most likely recording three more. St David’s, another of the impressive sides on show were supposed to play Michaelhouse later in the day and that result would have been very interesting.

I took a turn at the other two Joburg Festivals, KES and Parktown, in the morning and was reminded that water polo festivals are actually very serious affairs. The atmosphere, especially in the magnificent King Edward indoor facility, was electric and as the knockout stages approached, winning was very important to those boys and those coaches.

Like it or not, that is the future that the boys at the Ken Short Festival are being prepared for. This festival has been a very necessary return to normality, and an introduction to competitive polo, away from the quiet, familiar surroundings of their own school pools. Things are going to get more serious for them from now on.

Until then, they have one more morning of more (relatively) relaxed fun in what we all hope will be the Joburg sunshine.

Results

Maritzburg 6 St Benedict’s 3, Affies 7 Pretoria 1, Selborne 9 Jeppe 2, St Benedict’s 4 Westville 1, Kearney 4 Hilton 3, Rondebosch 7 SACS 3, Bishops 12 Affies 1, Michaelhouse 8 Clifton 3, SACS 8 Hilton 4, Jeppe 13 DHS 4, Grey College 9 Westville 2, Selborne 7 St Alban’s 1, Pretoria 5 Maritzburg 2, St John’s 8 Parktown 0. Michaelhouse 6 KES 1.

Ken Short Festival Day 2

 The second day of the Ken Short under-14 water polo festival passed, thankfully, without a weather interruption and the event, in the way that these sorts of tournaments do, took on a life of its own.

There’s a rhythm that everyone gets into – the teams rouse themselves a bit before their next game starts and go down to the learn-to-swim pool adjacent to the main one for a few laps of warmup swimming and, being under-14s in this case, mostly some horseplay. A final talk, then the final whistle of the game before and a few shooting drills before the refs emerge from somewhere high up in the stands and the process starts all over again.

Everything about school activities should be about education, and the lessons learned through participating in a big tournament like this one have been missed in the two Covid years. It’s all about “hurry up and wait”, mostly. There are long periods of hanging about followed, inevitably, by your matches in quick succession, and you have to use that free time constructively.

In more serious, senior tournaments, you strategically pick which opponents to watch in action, plan for your next encounter, and generally keep your head in the game. At the Ken Short I suspect it’s more about stopping the kids from injuring themselves messing about and from stuffing themselves with unhealthy goodies from the tuckshop.

It’s a start for these newcomers, an experience that the two year groups ahead of them never got, and one got the feeling at Jeppe these last two days that the coaches, and parents, realise that and they are making the most of it.

In the water, there was a definite improvement in the overall standard of play as the teams got more time to know each other and the benefits of remedial coaching followed by a quick turn-around and back into action, as happens at a tournament, kicked in. There were also clear signs of fatigue towards the end of the day when the boys had to play their fourth game in, in a big pool, in one and a half days. And there are lessons to be learnt from that new situation too.

The gap between the top teams here and the rest was again apparent. Michaelhouse entered the fray on Friday and showed they are a force to be reckoned with. They went down by one goal to Bishops, but were very impressive in their other encounter. There were comfortable wins for St David’s and Rondebosch in both of their outings.

I’d heard that the Ken Short is a festival that everyone wants to go to and on Friday I saw why. Tournament director, Lucky Letshabo and George Ramutle, Jeppe’s transport manager scrambled to meet requests for busses and combis to ferry teams across to the other two tournaments or out for night team functions. They did it with grace and quiet efficiency.

My highlights of days one and two both happened after the official day’s play had ended. On Thursday it was the massive (25 per side, I’d guess) game of touch rugby played in the dark on the cricket oval after supper. And on Friday it was the extra game arranged between the coaches of St John’s and Martitzburg College. They told the organisers (who had been at the pool since 6.30am and were really ready to go home by then) that they didn’t need referees – they would share the reffing between themselves – and not to worry about someone operating the electronic scoreboard, they wouldn’t be keeping score any way.

That’s what it’s all about.

Results

Michaelhouse 9 SACS 2, St David’s 3 Kearsney 1, Hilton 8 St Stithians 3, Bishops 5 Michaelhouse 4, Selborne 3 Affies1, DHS 2 St Alban’s 1, Pretoria 5 Parktown 4, Maritzburg 5 Westville 0, KES 6 St Stithians 5, Bishops 5 Clifton 2, St David’s 15 Westville 4, Rondesbosch 5 Hilton 0, SACS 9 KES 4, Michaelhouse 10 St Stithians 3, St Alban’s 6 St Benedict’s 3, St John’s 3 Selborne 3, Grey College 8 Jeppe 2, Martizburg 8 DHS 1, St Benedict’s 6 Pretoria 4, Selborne 10 Parktown 4, Kearnsey 9 Clifton 1, Hilton 6 Grey College 4, Rondebosch 7 KES 1, Clifton 6 Grey College 4, Affies 7 Jeppe 3.

Ken Short Waterpolo Festival Day 1

 The first day of the 22nd annual Ken Short under-14 Water Polo Festival on Thursday was completed, almost miraculously, without interruption in a week that saw lightning warning sirens go off every afternoon.

The greater miracle, though, was the mere fact that this festival marked a return to some normality for this group of boys who were able, for the first time in almost three years, to pit their skills against a variety of opponents on the same day, and then to mingle with them in a social way afterwards.

There was also a return to the stands of the parents, and the unique enthusiasm that you get from the sidelines in water polo -particularly at under-14 level – when the spectators voice their support without really knowing what the decisions being made by the referees are all about (that partial ignorance is common at all levels of the game).

All of which made for a great day of sport and a fitting culmination of months of planning and preparation by the Jeppe water polo staff.

It was decided a couple of years ago that the Ken Short would be festival, not a tournament as it had been before that. There would be no final, no winner, and no tournament team will be chosen. The thinking was that boys at this age still have so much to learn about the game, and about sporting competition in general, that making winning the main objective of playing should be removed from the equation.

This idea was put to the principals of the schools that regularly participate - which reads like a who’s who list of the top boys schools in the country - and it was readily agreed to.

And if anyone thought that all of that would translate into this festival not being taken seriously, you need only look at some of the coaching staff that are at Jeppe this weekend.

I spotted Lwazi Madi, the South African mens captain. He is coaching the SACS team. Terry Downes, a former national captain and coach, and one of the games all-time greats, is here with Affies, and former national player Andrew Ridley is coaching KES. Graham Waters, one of the most experienced coaches in the game is back with the Maritzburg College team and Jeppe’s new coaching acquisition, Lucky Letshaba, is putting his years of experience into developing our under-14s. Among the referees – all of them men with years of experience - is Miguel Morais, a current national player.

Which goes to show that water polo takes the development of its younger players very seriously and that the Ken Short Festival is seen as an important part of that.

Not that all the teams and players need the same level of development. This is a festival where winning is not supposed to be important, but on the evidence of the first day’s play, there are some teams that clearly stand out. The last game of the day – between Rondebsoch and Bishops was at a level way above that of beginners and those teams looked like they have been playing the game for years.

Joburg’s St David’s were also very impressive, as they have been all season.

Results

St John’s 3 Pretoria 0, Jeppe 6 Parktown 4, St Davids’s 8 St Stithians 4, Affies 5 St John’s 4, Grey College 8 St Alban’s 1, St Stithians 7 Jeppe 1, St David’s 7 KES 0, St Alban’s 5 Affies 5, Pretoria 7 DHS 1, St John’s 4 St Benedict’s 3, Rondebosch 8 Grey College 2, Bishops 12 KES 0, Parktown 8 DHS 4, St David’s 11 Clifton 2, Bishops 4 Rondebosch 3.