Cartier Queen’s Cup – Semi-finals
By Diana Butler
King Power Foxes 11 – 10 Talandracas
Dubai 11 – 10 UAE Polo – golden goal in 7th chukka
King Power Foxes and Dubai will play each other in the 2015 running of the Cartier Queen’s Cup Final. However these teams did not win their finals tickets without experiencing some drama and excitement on the top polo fields at Guards Polo Club earlier today.
King Power Foxes looked to have the first semi all sewn up when leading Talandracas 10-6 at the close of the fifth chukka on The Queen’s Ground. When playing a top team like the Foxes, with great players such as the Pieres boys and their fabulous ponies, a four-goal difference is invariably an insurmountable mountain to climb. Not so for Talandracas’s Sapo Caset and Polito Pieres. In an almost carbon copy of their quarter-final match against RH Polo, Talandracas came storming back into the game in the final chukka, scoring four goals to only one in reply from Gonzalito Pieres of King Power. This time though time was also against Talandracas and King Power Foxes won the game 11-10. The young Englishman Hugo Lewis, who had been really strong in defence for the Foxes, keeping Pablito Pieres off the ball for much of the game, was rewarded with the Most Valuable Player Award, much to the delight of his parents who were watching this game from the Royal Box. Facundo Pieres’s Sharapova was named Best Playing Pony. He had played this mare in the fourth chukka.
The second semi, played on The Duke’s Groun, was full of drama and lasted almost three hours! Dubai was fielding the same team that had won in the quarters – Rashid Albwardy, Martin Valent, Alejo Ortiz de Tarenco Stirling and Adolfo Cambiaso. However they were forced to make more changes in the second when Cambiaso took his second fall of the game and retired hurt. His place was taken by Sapo Caset, who had just played some 20 minutes earlier for Talandracas. This change of team did not seem to affect Caset and he immediately scored a penalty to counteract three goals from Pablo MacDonough in the second chukka. Rashid Albwardy dominated the third, scoring two excellent field goals to give Dubai a 6-4 advantage going into the half-time break.
The second half of this match was marred by whistles and strong winds, which certainly sent some penalty shots astray for both teams. There was also another delay in the fourth after Lucas Monteverde was hit in the hand. Dubai were leading 8-5 going into the fifth but failed to score at all in this chukka. This gave UAE the chance to go ahead for the first time, which they did thanks to some great goals off the sticks of MacDonough and Jose Ramon Araya. However with the score reading 9-8 in favour of UAE, this game could still go either way. At last both teams began to play some wonderful fast and flowing polo – we had six minutes with no umpires’ whistles at all – and with Caset, Stirling and MacDonough all scoring, the game went into extra time. This extra, seventh chukka was also fairly flowing, with lots of up and down polo, until quite late on when Dubai was awarded a penalty. This was successfully converted by Caset, and propelles Dubai into this Sunday’s final. Maybe it was appropriate that a game that had 29 penalties should have been decided by a penalty!
Next matches – Sunday 14 June
· 11am Subsidiary Final for the Cartier Trophy
· 3pm Cartier Queen’s Cup Final 2015 – King Power Foxes v Dubai