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Team Emirates rally to retain Polo Championship trophy
Team Emirates rallied to quell Ghantoot's challenge and retain the Emirates Open Polo Championship trophy with an 8-7 win on Wednesday.
- By M. Satya Narayan, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 December 8, 2006
- Emirates team with the trophy after the presentation by Saeed Houfan Al Mansouri, of Ghantoot after the final match of the Emirates Open Polo Championship.
- Image Credit: Ahmed Kutty/Gulf News
Abu Dhabi: Team Emirates rallied to quell Ghantoot's challenge and retain the Emirates Open Polo Championship trophy with an 8-7 win on Wednesday.
The defending champions had earlier lost to Ghantoot in the league phase and in Wednesday's final under floodlights were initially trailing 1-2. But Argentine pro Juan Jose Araya came up with a classy effort of four goals while UAE national players Fahad Al Qubeisi and Abdullah Bin Desmal along with Rodolfo Ducos chipped with useful scores.
Abdullah Bin Desmal, who scored four goals in the previous match and helped his team reach the final, scored a fine goal while Fahad was more effective with two goals. Ducos, who did miss a couple of penalty attempts in fact, opened the scoring with a 60-yard conversion
The teams were level after three chukkas at 3-3 in a game which saw some skilful play by both teams. While Ducos did some excellent work in the defence, so did Gonzalo Azumendi for Ghantoot.
Azumendi also scored two goals while Fernando Quinto Bourdieu scored three and the remaining two goals were scored by Ahmad Al Nuaimi, another UAE national who was very impressive.
After being 3-3 at the end of the third chukka, the fourth produced four goals and the teams ended it 5-5.
It was in the fifth chukka that Emirates scored three goals, two by Araya and that changed the course of the final.
Down 6-8 in the final chukka, Quinto pulled one back but Ducos and his men staved off any further threat to finish on top with an 8-7 score.
"It was a highly entertaining and well-contested final," said skipper Abdullah Bin Desmal of the winning team.
"It was good to see the UAE players perform well and this is what the Ghantoot Racing & Polo Club has been aiming at," he said.
The event was held under the patronage of Shaikh Falah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, GRPC Chairman.
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