WSL2  Report by Torben Fink-Jensen

Essendon were on a high after the last couple of weeks of results, but hit a determined NYP team on Tuesday night, while playing without Emmy and Katie B.

The game was an arm-wrestle for the first few minutes. Essendon had plenty of ball but good goalkeeping from the NYP GK Isla (sometime Essendon player) and some structured defence made it difficult for Essendon to score.  NYP opened the scoring but Essendon eventually bested the quarter 2-1 through Emily and Mietta despite missing a penalty.

The 2nd quarter was equally tight and with another penalty missed, NYP capitalised to take the lead at 3-2. Luckily for Darren's blood pressure, Essendon came home with a wet sail as their frenetic goalmouth attacks led to several goals in succession, each of them hard fought to give Essendon a 6-3 lead at half-time.

We were expecting NYP to tire since they had no subs but they continued to fight hard. Despite a few misses, and Kate having to put in a couple of extra shifts at the back, Essendon managed to keep their noses in front with goals to Emily who was continuing to swim hard into the goal mouth and Josie who was ranging around creating problems for the NYP defence, making it 8-4 at three quarter time.

Darren was expecting more after telling the girls that he should have stayed home to watch the block, even though our reality water polo game was less fake than that crappy show. Essendon started the 4th quarter with a well worked move with Mietta drawing Perry away from Gen who slammed the ball home.

NYP did eventually hit the wall in the final term, their attacks became sluggish and we were getting in behind their defence regularly. Josie managed a great goal picking the pocket of her opposite and beating her in the sprint to score. Gen did one of her trademark Centre Forward moves to beat the keeper and Alex contributed a goal with Mietta and Josie rounding things out.

Essendon defeated the NYP Dragons : 14 - 7 Goals : Mietta 4, Emily 3, JOsie 3, Gen 2, Alex 2

Below : our WSL2 girls in action this week (photos courtesy of Torben Fink-Jensen, see more on our FB page)

WSL3  Report by Lisa Murray-Segal

This week would be a tough challenge up against ladder leaders StCath's.  With Sally and Maddy out, our swimming strength was reduced, but we were well supported on the sidelines with Megan back from NZ and Kerrie's daughter Jordan to coach and guide us.  Things started slowly with both sides struggling to string together some meaningful passages of play, but StCaths got their act together before us and put one away.  We were matching them in the pool, but our shots were off target.  A slip in defence and they scored again, but we turned things around when Sheridan found the back of the net from centre forward.  Two more goals to StCath's followed, seeing out the quarter down 1-4.  For the rest of the game we kept things much tighter.  Georgia was outstanding in defence, and Kerrie was in particularly good form coming off the John Mason Cup. For the remaining three quarters StCaths's only outscored us by a goal each term.  Sheridan put away another 2 goals for the game to record a hat trick, and we were unlucky not to score a couple more with solid shots from the wing by Ari and Georgia just going wide.  A pretty good game against the top side that was not reflected by the scoreline. 

Essendon were defeated by St Catherine's : 3 - 9   Goals : Sheridan 3

MSL4  Report by Ryan Mills

🏆 ​A huge statement win this week! We took on the top team in the league and put together our best performance in two years to roll Ajax 12–5.

​🔥 Highlights & Tactics:

• ​The Plan: Flawlessly rotated shutting down their key player to completely neutralize their attack.

• ​Relentless Pressure: Maintained intensity all game and buried them on the scoreboard.

• ​Standouts: Huge games from new recruits Jack (unreal cross-cage pass) and Izaak (hard-fought goal)! Matt was a wall in goals as always.

Great team victory—let's keep this momentum rolling into next week

Essendon defeated Ajax : 12 - 5  

Goals : Ryan 4, Ambrose 2, Jack 1, Izaak 1, Luke 1, JackH 1, Vince 1, Lee 1

OSL5  Report by Marcus Jones

Dear wrap readers.........I had a dream last night......I had a dream where most of the OSL5 boys turned up to play, giving us great energy and most importantly 4 bench players. That dream was reality tonight where we had our best turn out of the season. And we made Essendon proud by almost swimming the whole match and competing to the highest MSL5 level. We dominated the opposition with all players putting in great efforts with Lewy and Andrew Cover being the best. And who said Rohan Donohoe is old? He dominated CF in the 2nd half and scored a tremendous goal.

Well done everyone - great team effort.

Essendon defeated Melbourne Surge Black : 4 - 2   Goals : Hayden 1, Bryan 1, Lewy 1, Rohan 1

12&U Mixed  Report by Jamie Kirby

This week the 12s had their first of 3 clinic style sessions as preparation for matches. It was was attended by around 20 children overall, from our team (DVE/Essendon) and Footscray's two squads (Blue and Red). A skills session to start (some talented 10-11 year olds!) concluding with a scratch match DVE/Essendon vs Footscray.

All the kids looked like they had a blast! Looking forward to week 2. 😊

14&U Boys  Report by Sheridan Mom

The newly combined Essendon, NYP and Footscray water polo team had a brutal introduction to the season, copping a 20-0 loss in their first game. While it’s tricky blending two different groups into one squad, the match really exposed the gap in our fitness and execution, especially with the adjustment to playing with a shot clock. Having no bench definitely didn't help our legs, and a massive thank you goes out to Harvey from the U12s for stepping up to lend us a hand so we could put a team out there. Moving forward, the focus at training is clear : we need to protect the ball better under pressure, move it much quicker before the clock runs down, and everyone needs to start swimming a hell of a lot more to cover the counter-attack.

Essendon-NYP-Footscray were defeated by Northcote : 0 - 20   

14&U Girls   (Editor)

There has been much controversary and miscommunications around the teams and player entries for this grade, impacting our girls. One minute we were comfortably sitting in a 3 club team with 13 players, the next (after entries had closed) we found ourselves in a 2 club team with 7 players. That has since stretched to a squad of 9, but we were denied the opportunity to add a couple more through age exemptions. Thankfully the girls had a scheduled BYE this week, enabling us additional time to sort all this out.

16&U Boys  (Editor)

Disappointingly, the call came out this week that the Geelong-Northcote team were going to be unable to field a team for the opening round of the junior comp.

DVE-Essendon-Footscray defeated Geelong-Northcote : 0 - 8   (FORFEIT RECIEVED)

16&U Girls  Report by Kate Simnett

The girls were back in the pool for round one of the summer comp. We’ve retained our winter partnership with DVE and added a couple more from Geelong. Facing a State-team stacked Richmond Black was quite the welcome, but the girls defended well and an early penalty from Josie had us at 1-1 at the end of the first quarter. The second saw us a bit less organised and Richmond scored a couple. Darren was encouraging at half time and gave the girls the task of making sure their passes were servicing all their good swimming.

The third and fourth quarters saw three goals; a beautiful counter from Alice, a well-aimed penalty from Maddy and one from Josie that took us to 4 all. Some absolutely stellar swimming and pressure from Lola and Ari in particular held them at bay… and then, one final goal from Richmond sealed it 😩

Darren made the excellent point that the girls are really starting to gel - looking for each other and teamwork were the best we’d seen.

Props to Audrey, Lola and Sophie for holding off their CF as well as Violet and Anja for their strong tackles. Many thanks to table King; Dermott.

Essendon were defeated by Richmond Black : 4 - 5   Goals : Josie 2, Alice 1, Madeleine 1

18&U Boys  Report by Ilona Elmore

This team has been developing nicely over the past 12 months. After coming back together and stepping up into the Under 18 competition, the squad is made up entirely of bottom-age players, with support from DVE’s Under 16s when required. They know how to play as a team, and their first game back showed that, although there was understandably a little rust in Round 1.

The first half was a very even contest, which was particularly encouraging given the size and talent-pathway experience within the Richmond Tigers team. DVE’s defence was strong, but the attack was wasteful, finding the back of the net only twice from 12 opportunities. The team went into halftime trailing 2–3. The third quarter ultimately decided the game. DVE managed only two shots, continued to turn the ball over too often and conceded several major fouls. A lack of discipline allowed Richmond to score five unanswered goals and take control of the match. In the final quarter, the team returned to what it does best: playing together. DVE won the quarter, with all three goals coming from assists, and successfully converted an extra-player opportunity.

Overall, this team continues to shine when it plays as a unit, and there is still plenty of improvement to come as the players prepare for the Canberra Cup. DVE converted only 25 per cent of its shots against an outstanding Richmond goalkeeper, while turnovers remain an area to clean up. There was plenty to be happy about in the Round 1 performance. There will be no easy games in this competition, but this young team has shown it belongs at this level.

DVE (Ess) were defeated by Richmond : 5 - 10   Goals : TBC