Tauranga's under-14A boys' water polo team are national champions after beating North Harbour in the final.
Coach Brendan Horan went to unusual lengths to ensure his Tauranga under-14A boys' team was the best prepared of all at the national championships held in Wellington this week.
His novel preparation included having the New Zealand and former Japan synchronised swimming coaches take the boys through drills to improve
their underwater posture.
And it paid off as Tauranga decisively beat favourites North Harbour 7-4 in the final to win their first national title in the grade.
"It was a real community effort. We had the two synchro coaches take sessions to make the leg work better on our boys because treading water is a major component of water polo. It was really clear to see that we were higher out of the water than the other teams. Also a local dentist moulded mouth guards for all the boys, which was a great help," Horan said.
"The boys played really, really well. It was a great challenge for them but they prepared very well. All the boys swam outside of training so when they came to water polo training we could really concentrate on doing a lot of skills and ball work. We ended up having the fastest swimmers there with six of the boys able to go under a minute for 100 metres. There are not many teams that can boast that.
