Water Polo: City elite making splash in pursuit of Olympic glory

Oct 12 2007 by Staff Reporter, Liverpool Daily Post

WOMEN’S water polo is set for a bright future – thanks to two City of Liverpool players.

Rosemary Morris and Fiona McCann helped Great Britain take silver in this year’s European Championships, showing the way to the 2012 London Olympics and much more.

Morris, 21, a teaching assistant in Withington, Manchester, was voted goalkeeper of the tournament at this summer’s water polo championships, while another star of the tournament was finalist goalscorer McCann, 20, a student of sports science at Liverpool John Moores University.

In the summer’s big international event, eight of Europe’s second tier teams came together to contest a right to compete at next year’s European A Championships.

Great Britain pitted their wits against Slovakia, Turkey, Portugal and Ukraine en route to the final, where they were eventually beaten 5-2 by a dominant French side.

Despite missing out on gold, Rosemary said: “I was really chuffed, I wasn’t expecting to be our number one choice but the hard work and training all paid off.”

Fiona was equally buoyant about her side’s performances, saying: “My personal highlight was against Ukraine in the semis. I played centre-back and our defence worked well, they were very physical so it was good to beat them.”

The sport seems to have a demanding schedule at club and international level with players having to cope with high skill and physical play.

Rosemary added: “It’s a bit like basketball in the water, it is supposedly a non-contact sport where you are not allowed to touch someone in possession of the ball, but when a player doesn’t have the ball, it is pretty much full contact.”

Both women are representatives of the City of Liverpool water polo side and intend to bring success home as they plan to go one better in this year’s National League Division One.

The 2006-07 season saw them finish second to Sheffield and the two Liverpool stars will be looking to use their unique experience to push their City side to glory while further bolstering their own chances of involvement with the Great Britain side of the future.

The coach that led the team to the European final is Hungarian Szilveszter Fekete, who has been working with the squad to help the sport move forward ahead of the London 2012 Olympics.

His training methods involve swim-ming in T-shirts to improve a better overall level of fitness as well as weight training and press-ups to build upper body strength.

“In the last game of the tournament against France we were tiring and needed to be stronger and fitter,” said Rosemary.

Fiona agreed, saying: “The training is exciting but tiring, and certainly key to success.”

The training that Rosemary and Fiona receive at the Austin Rawlinson pool in Speke, should benefit Liverpool in the forthcoming season.

The head coach at City of Liverpool is Gordon Dacre with Andy King his assistant.

Fiona insists training for club and country can be very different.

She said: “We use some similar drills, but for Liverpool training is with everyone, including junior’s, we also work on tactics a bit more as we play together in league and cup games regularly,” she said.

“Training with Great Britain is very much fitness orientated.”

After finishing runners-up last year, Fiona is confident Liverpool will be challenging for honours again, saying: “It should be between us and Manchester, I don’t think Sheffield will do as well as they have lost a few players.

“A lot will depend on injuries and selections for the GB side.”

Recently water polo has been given a morale boost with funding looking as if it could be on the increase.

This is particularly pleasing for Fion,a who is hoping to make a career out of the sport. “My main focus is London 2012,” she added. “There are now lots of new schemes – a national academy for youngsters and the EIS (English Institute of Sport) is helping out much more with funding.”

So with the sport on the up, a possible place in the Olympic squad for these two rising stars will be just the ticket.

Through striking silver at the European B Championships, Team GB will enter qualifying this November for the A Championships.

If the girls can keep performing with Liverpool, the chance for domestic, international glory and Olympic competition lies within touching distance.