Neptunes earned their 20th waterpolo league title, their second in a row, after beating their arch-rivals Sliema in a five-match thrilling play-off, the first time ever that the local waterpolo competition was decided this way.
The Reds dominated the season right from the start, went through their round robin matches without dropping a point and were ultimately the more consistent team this summer. Their foreign players made a big impact and with Steve Camilleri playing one blinder after another, and with Niki Lanzon enjoying a second youth, Neptunes were more than one notch above the rest.
But they were made to struggle in the latter stages by Sliema who, after low-key performances in the round robin phase, largely due to the absence of a number of important players, upped a gear in the play-offs to force a fifth deciding match. The Blues’ fighting spirit knows no bounds but at the end they had to give in to stronger opponents.
Sliema can console themselves for two reasons. The first is that their two wins in the play-offs prevented Neptunes from taking the title unbeaten, and the second is that they won the winter league to prevent Neptunes from making a clean sweep. The winter league may have been played very early in the season, but it should not be forgotten, as The Times did last Tuesday.
This season, we had some innovations in the competition format, the most important of which were the play-offs. This arrangement had its good points, in that it led to a climax of enthralling games between Malta’s two top clubs, but on the other hand led to a reduced interest during the round robin part of the league.
This is mostly because, with Sliema and Neptunes sure of their places in the top four given their overall superiority, the round robin phase ended up being just a way to eliminate one team from San Ġiljan, Sirens and Exiles. There was nothing more to it; with only five teams in the top division, the play-offs idea was excellent for the ending, but poor for the longer part of the season.
What worked well was the division of the teams in two groups at the start of the summer campaign, which eliminated a great number of unnecessary games between clubs of a different class.
What also emerged from the new format is the heightened rivalry between Neptunes and Sliema, which the play-off system only helped to increase. While, on the one hand, it is this competition between these two clubs that is enabling local waterpolo to survive, on the other hand it is also a limitation because other clubs have become even less significant.
On a technical note, observers could not help but notice that both major clubs’ weakest link is the goalkeeper. It seems that local waterpolo is suffering from a dearth in this very important role in the game – after producing talented keepers like Michael Soler, Sandro Cosby and Joe Caruana Dingli, the local game has yet to find a suitable replacement. Shots have become more powerful, it is true, but keepers have become weaker too.