AD Water Polo Association

Australian Country Championships, Bunbury WA, 2002

Placings: Men - 5th
Women - 3rd or 5th?

2002 saw the ADF Men’s and Women’s teams over to the West to Bunbury to play in the Australian Countries. The scene was set for the tour when Gibbsy picked us up from the airport with a full esky for the bus ride to Leeuwin.
The traditional week long training camp for acclimatisation went as usual with early morning fitness sessions in the freezing cold Leeuwin pool and afternoon skill sessions at HMAS Sterling on Garden Island. During this first week of hard training and acclimatisation, the team felt the need to acquaint themselves with the famous North Bridge night life. Needless to say we acclimatised.
One of the highlights of the tour was during an evening at the Left Bank, Jason Selman happened to meet the Captain of the US Navy ship USS Russell, an AGIS class Destroyer. Captain Hank, as we came to call him, invited the entire team to come onboard the following day for lunch and a tour of the ship. As this was only six months after September 11 security was extremely high and we were very lucky to be granted such a privilege.
With the endless bus trips out to Garden Island some times twice a day due to the falling pool temperature, the last thing the team wanted was the 2 1/2 hour trip to Bunbury. Needless to say that’s where the tournament was being held so off we went. Once in Bunbury we set our selves up in an Army reserve depot on stretchers in the main hall. Gotta love communal living.
The tournament went pretty much as expected with a few of our top players unavailable due to unit commitments. The Men’s team won only one game against WA 2. The women’s team however managed to scrape in to the Bronze medal play off and won (Editors Note - Water Warriors Book has the girls placed in 5th behind the NT, however I have noted many errors in said learned tome so we will go with Bloory here as he was there, although his sobriety can not be guaranteed!).
After the tournament there was the usual closing function which was attended by all. With the formalities out of the way and a couple of days left before flying back to Eastern civilisation we managed to get in a bit of sight seeing. Margaret River saw a historical event with the first woman in ADF history winning the World Chupa Chub body surfing championships. I believe she is still reigning champion. The trip home from Margaret river saw the buses take two distinct routes. One group found a chocolate factory and the other found the Margaret River wineries. Once back in Perth the group filtered out to do various activities on our last night before flying back home.