DEAF SPORTS Waterpolo deaflympics

Today was an action packed day featuring participation in both sports of Swimming and Water Polo. Vincent McArdle was competing in the 400m Freestyle event. He was in a good shape and expected to break his personal best time.

Along came the heats, Vincent appeared in the fourth heat and off he went. His pace was steady along the way and at one point he was leading but dropped back after 2 lengths. However, he maintained his short distance from the leader throughout the race. He came third in the race clocking a personal best time of 4.19.60 minutes smashing his previous best of 4.22 minutes! This meant he had qualified for the finals as 8th best time overall in the heats. Alan Turner, the coach, quoted; "I'm well pleased for him, I knew he would slice a chunk off his personal best! He will go further in the finals." To ensure Vincent give his best in the finals, he opted to rest throughout the Water Polo match.

It was a great start to the day and the Water Polo match against the Hungarians in the afternoon complemented the morning race well!

After the usual lining up for the announcement and greeting the opponents, the team set out to make up for some mistakes yesterday against the Italians. Ireland started well and Keating had the honour of opening the account by scoring a goal. (IRL 1:0 HUN). However, the Hungarians were determined to answer back by knocking one in (1:1). A clumsy foul was made on an Irish near the goal so a penalty was awarded to the Irish and Frank Grace, determined to make an impact, had the pleasure of knocking one in (2:1). Maher came close with a chance but shot the ball over the bar. By that point, Dave the coach called a timeout and gave a talk on a specific tactic to adopt in the match. Then we had a man up which meant one Hungarian was sent off for 20 secs, it was an opportunity to take advantage of one opponent less in the pool but the ball went wide. Experienced player, Nolan swam ahead with a ball and cleverly slotted one past the Hungarian goalie (3:1). A stupid foul was made by the Irish which has resulted in a penalty for the Hungarian but Colm Keogh, our goalie came to the rescue by saving the penalty and it was the end of Quarter 1 - (3:1).

It was evident that the Hungarians were gobsmacked with our performance and especially our defence as we have managed to keep them at bay thus reducing any chances for them to score. Soon enough the next quarter started, Alan Turner a veteran in our team fouled the opponent and was called off, Hungary took advantage of the man down situation and scored (3:2). Seconds later, the recent situation was the opposite and Ireland scored a goal courtesy of Nolan (4:2). The Irish fans, mostly made up by school children at the local school were cheering us on with large visible banners and flags. Ryder had the misfortune to foul the opponent and as a result a penalty was given and Hungary did the duty of scoring (4:3). Determined not to let the fans down, another Irish goal came along by Keating assisted by Patrick Maher (5:3). By then the Hungarians started to shift a couple of gear up and attempted long range shots from various positions. One went past Keogh (5:4). Counter-attacking was fast becoming the Hungarians' speciality as each time their goalie got the ball, he passed it straight to the hole man's way but in doing so, Paul Ryder the captain quickly backtracked and got into the holeman's way and safely knocked the ball off. This has helped ease the pressure off Keogh who was getting busier by the minute! There were instances when we were a man up but failed to convert the chances. Hungary finally equalised by putting one in courtesy of a counter-attack. Defence was quickly becoming our weakness. Grace got the ball from corner and tried to attempt goal but missed in the process. In a bizarre set of circumstances, the Hungarian goalie was called off for a dirty foul and to make the matter worse, one of their players accidently caught a ball with two hands and resulted in two men down. The Irish not wanting to embarrass themselves put one in through Grace (6:5). Determined not to fall further behind, Hungary scored one when we were a man down (6:6). Similar incident was repeated and Hungary finally got on top of it all by scoring one and going in front (6:7). When having the possession, a foul was made by the Hungarians and thus having a man up for us, we were eager not to let this chance go amiss. Patrick Maher calmly slotted one in (7:7). Thankfully it came just seconds before half-time and enabled us to have a breather.

The crowd was rather astonished to witness such a scintillating match and even the German fans were on our side cheering whenever we scored a goal! Third quarter was far trickier than the previous two quarters as Hungary resumed the scoring by a long range shot (7:8). Hungary was getting dirtier and got away with several fouls but the Malaysian referee spotted one on Nolan and awarded a penalty to the Irish. Keating swam up and unfortunately shot the ball straight to the goalie's hands. However we made it up a minute later when Grace swam ahead in time before the ball changed possession after 30 seconds in the opponents' hands and Keogh cleverly passed it to Grace's path and he did the business by putting one past Hungary (8:8). The tension was far too much for the supporters but we were determined to make history today.

Hungary came close once more but missed and Grace did the opposite seconds later. One of the Hungarians players numbered 10 on the hats, saw a chance from a long distance and attempted one shot. Unfortunately it went in and put them ahead again (8:9). Later on, we were a man down and thankfully Hungary missed. Maher came close but missed too. Hungary's goalie threw the ball to their holeman and he decided to be creative and lobbed a ball in the goal (8:10). Grace had a goal disallowed moments later. Again he came close but Hungary pinched the ball back. By now we were really tired from it all and the break could not have come any sooner. Dave the coach gave a brief talk about seizing chances and pressing close against the opponents whenever they came close in our territory.

We began the final quarter by going a man up and Grace attempted one but their goalie, fast becoming their saviour, saved the ball. Timeout was called by the Hungarian's coach. Dave grabbed this opportunity to put in a word or two to some players. By now, two Hungarians are no longer eligible to take part in the match due to picking up three fouls each. This had no effect on them since Hungarians substitutes have the same abilities as their first 7 players! This was evident by them scoring again via a counter-attack (8:11). Soon another goal came their way courtesy of a man down for the Irish (8:12). Ryder came close but the ball hit the post. We were rather frustrated at our failure of converting the chances. We had no fuel left in our bodies by then. Hungary called a timeout and their coach seemed to have done wonders for us as we were awarded a penalty later on. This time round Nolan decided to swim up and take it. It seems luck was against us once more as their goalie calculated the move well and saved it! Liam Moloney who is one of the youngsters was determined to make a name for himself and attempted a chance but narrowly missed the goal. Hungary decided to further torture us with another goal, this time due to a foul made by Kearney (8:13). Eager to make up for his recent foul, Kearney decided to shoot a ball as the countdown was approaching 0 but their goalie duly saved it. Tired legs were the cause throughout the Irish team as Hungary scored one more thus taking the total to 14-8 to Hungary. At the last few seconds, Moloney was determined to restore pride by attempting a goal but their goalie was on top of it all and saved it again! Final score was 14-8 to Hungary.

It was a valiant performance set by the Irish. It can be seen that the Irish does have the required qualities to be a contender for the Gold but an improvement in converting chances is needed. Dave the coach was pleased with the performance and quoted, 'A clear improvement from yesterday and the team should be proud of themselves'.

"Fantastic performance, we clearly have a chance in the competition" - Sean Herlihy.

The day was far from being over as the players dressed up and rallied together to watch Vincent McArdle in the final of 400m Freestyle. He stepped up on the starter step and got off to an excellent start. It was rather difficult race and the leader from Italy was far too good in the race and made it first at the end. Vincent, however, came 8th but has significantly made an improvement to his time in the heat by clocking a personal best of 4.18.85 minutes. Also two world records were broken in the final events which further showed that the suits were making a huge difference! We were elated to witness it all and even more so when we heard the news of the Irish Deaf Football team making it top of their group courtesy of drawing with the Japanese (0:0) this morning. Clearly today has been productive for the Irish camp and hopefully Reid and Fennell will top it all off by netting a medal or two in the 10km run tonight.