First Citizens Bank may have squandered the opportunity of gaining a semi-final place in the Damiani Columbian Emeralds-sponsored Barbados 10-Goal Polo tournament, after suffering their second straight defeat last Sunday at the Clifton Polo grounds in St Thomas.
Having lost their opening match 11-8 to Bajan Services at the Buttals Grounds last Friday after the opening match was rained out on Wednesday, they were then crushed 9-3 on Sunday by the Mercedes team of Philip Tempro, Mickey Duggan, Rhys Odle and Martin Juaregui.
First Citizens’ inform Oliver Taylor and Jamie Le-Hardy were not allowed to settle into any rhythm and the team were simply outplayed by the accurate strokeplay of Duggan and Juaregui who earned four and three goals, respectively, for Mercedes.
There were some anxious moments for Mercedes after Juaregui was accidentally struck in the face by a mallet in the second chukka. Play was held up for about nine minutes as the player, winching and rolling on the ground in pain, was attended to by paramedics on standby at the grounds.
He was eventually allowed to continue playing after showing no serious side effects.
The second game of the afternoon, between First Caribbean and Courtesy Nissan, was a nail-biter that went down to the wire. In a see-saw battle, the teams exchanged the lead several times.
First Caribbean controlled the match for most of the first half, but Courtesy Nissan fought back bravely to level the score at 6-6 with less than two minutes left in regulation.
Roddy Williams, who had scored all six of Courtesy’s goals up to that point, was then awarded a 60-yard penalty but his shot went wide.
First Caribbean were awarded a penalty in the dying seconds of the match and Richard Gooding made no mistake as he found the middle of the uprights to snatch a well-earned victory.
