43rd Land Rover International Polo Tournament – Days 16 & 17 – Silver Cup
Location: Santa MarÃa Polo Club Sotogrande
Country: Spain
By Victoria Elsbury-Legg
It was a question of semi-final qualification on Saturday in the High Goal as Ellerston and Ayala looked to join Valiente with three straight wins in the league stages. In the first game of the day Kerry Packer, Gonzalo and Facundo Pieres and Thomas Brodie faced RH Polo (Ben Soleimani, Nicolas Pieres, Facundo Sola and Santiago Von Wernich). Entering the second chukka it was 2 all on the board but once again the joint power of the Pieres brothers could not be matched by another Pieres (Nicolas) in partnership with Facu Sola as by half time it was 9-6. By chukka five Ellerston were 14-9 ahead and despite a great fight by RH Polo, scoring four goals in the sixth, they could not prevent Ellerston from reaching their goal of a third straight win with a 16-13 score, plus a place in the semi-finals opposite Robert Jornayvaz’s men, headed up by Cambiaso on Tuesday.
In the following games Michael Bickford’s La Indiana managed to tie the score at 5 all in the third, this despite Ayala entering the match with 2 straight league match wins and La Indiana with two losses. Inigo Zobel, the Stirling brothers and Diego Cavanaugh managed to regain the lead 8-7 in the fourth and eventually finally won by one goal 14-13 at the end of the sixth and secured their semi-final place.
Meanwhile on another pitch there was a surprise in store for Victor Vargas’s veteran High Goal team Lechuza Caracas as ten goal Juan Martin Nero, Francisco Elizalde and English four goaler Matt Perry found themselves 5-1 behind at the start of the third, then 6-3 at half time to the Pailloncy brothers and team HB Polo. Despite putting more goals on the board, Lechuza Caracas were not able to catch up with HB Polo who achieved their first win in this season in Sotogrande 10-8, whilst, despite one win, Lechuza Caracas had their second Silver Cup league match loss.
So, in the first of Tuesday’s Silver Cup semi- finals at 17:30 Cambiaso will once again be heading for opposite goal posts to Facundo Pieres (unlike their last joint win on English turf at Audi International at Guards Polo Club) when Valiente play Ellerston on LPII. Following at 19:00 will be Ayala against Dos Lunas Banco Espirito Santo, the only team to qualify with two wins and one loss (King Power and Las Monjitas also had two wins and one loss but it was decided by wins over these two teams in previous games).
In the Medium Goal matches on Sunday at 17:30 Equus (with an 11-10 win over Lebeau-Courally) and Leones (with a 10-7 win over Silex) secured the first slots on Thursday, whilst in the later 19:00 games, Seven Sevens (beating Los Dragones 8-7) and Mahra-Espranza (beating El Rosario 12-11) joined them. Meaning on Thursday at 17:00 Leones will play Mahra-Esperanza on LP1 in the subsidiary final and later in the Medium Goal Silver Cup Final at 18:30 Equus take on Seven Sevens on LPIII.
Monday 11th August 2014
Silver Cup – High Goal
17:30