It was our first experience of playing in Division One of the British Water Polo League and although we narrowly lost our first two games of the season at Ponds Forge Sheffield, the team can travel back down the M1 with their heads held high.

Over eight quarters of water polo across the two games the team won five, draw one but ultimately losing two quarters heavily, one in each game costs us the points, a big learning curve in game management is the major learning point from the weekend.

Our first game was on Saturday evening at 5.00pm and having just learned that Arsenal had secured all three points with a late winner against Leicester in the Premier League the team entered the water in a buoyant mood.

A goal after 4.18 mins play by Josh Barrett will see his name written into the Watford History books as the first player to score for the club in Division One and just over two minutes later Josh Pender had Watford 2 up when his shot hit the post and bounced in, what a start to life in the big boys division.

A late goal by Cheltenham and the first quarter closed 2-1 to Watford.

The second quarter saw Watford continue to attack and the team scored five more goals to extend their lead 7-2, during this period Karan Basu saved a Cheltenham penalty.

However with 2.17 remaining until half-time Cheltenham scored two quick fire goals to reduce the score to 7-4 and this gave them the momentum going into the break.

Into the Third period and with Cheltenham becoming far more aggressive in their pressing they managed to stem the Watford attack and they slower ate into our lead and go passed it with six unanswered goals to take a 7-10 lead going into the final period.

Into the final period and an early goal for Cheltenham had them four clear however two quick goals in 27 seconds had Watford back within two thanks to efforts from Jack Pickford & Gellert Peresztegi-Nagy.

Another Cheltenham goal with 22 seconds left secure the points for the West country side but not before Pickford got Watford tenth goal of the game. FT 12-10.

On to Sunday morning and a game against local side Sheffield, who had also lost on day one to Penguin so a win for either side would be a good start to the season.

Unfortunately it was Sheffield who got off to the better start winning the opening quarter 7-2, a goal from Zac Corcoran had given Watford an early lead but Sheffield hit three in a row. Peter Pickford then score for 3-2 but four unanswered goals give Sheffield a dominant lead at the break.

The second period and Watford reduced the deficit with early goals from Adam Heywood & Matthew Williams for 4-7, Sheffield hit back for 4-8 but two more goals from Heywood & Si Almond had Watford within two at 6-8 but two late goals from Sheffield had them 6-10 up at the half-way point in the match.

The third period opened with Zac scoring a double either side of a Karan penalty save as Watford clawed their way back to within two at 8-10. But a lapsed in defensive concentration allowed Sheffield to score for 8-11. Another Zac goal and another penalty save from Karan gave Watford some momentum as a goal from Jared Baker had Watford within one at 10-11.

With 2.22 to play Sheffield score for 10-12 but after Watford coach Edi called a Timeout Jared Baker scored again for 11-12.

With 1.01 remaining in the game Sheffield scored for 11-13 and with only 35 seconds remaining Adam Heywood scored from Man-up for 12-13, we then had a great chance to level the game but the chance was missed and Sheffield advanced up the other end to score the final goal to clinch the game 12-14.

Overall a fantastic opening weekend and lots of positives, with five games remaining we still have a great chance of making the Super fives but we will need to learn some in game management.

The next round of matches will be over the weekend of the 26th & 27th October in Aldershot when the team will play Sutton & Cheam, Polytechnic & Welsh Wanderers.

Thanks to Rockstar Energy for providing the energy for the weekend, much appreciated.