Park Place 18 –9 La Dolfina/Scone
Dubai 9 – 4 UAE Polo Team
La Dolfina/Marques de Riscal 16 – 10 Sujan Indian Tigers
King Power 11 – 9 Aureus
After more than three frenetic weeks, the 19 teams who have been battling for Cartier glory have reduced down to just four. These remarkable squads will face their penultimate battle on Wednesday in their bid to win through to Sunday’s Cartier Queen’s Cup Final.
The first match on Wednesday, for the Kerry Packer Trophy, will feature the winners from Saturday’s quarter-finals – Park Place and Dubai. Park Place had a dominant game over La Dolfina/Scone, beating David Paradice’s team 18-9. Andrey Borodin’s Park Place, again featuring Matias Maldonado in place of the injured patron, led from the first chukka. An impressive opening period gave them a commanding 5-1 lead and the blue shirts never looked back. Hilario Ulloa, no doubt inspired by his faultless penalty taking in the penalty shootout last week, was in dominant form for Park Place, scoring the majority of his team’s goals.
The weather deteriorated massively for the second quarter-final, with heavy rain showers making play difficult. It did not seem to affect Dubai, even though they had a change of lineup. Alfie Hyde replaced patron Rashid Albwardy who was injured. Dubai led 2-0 after the first chukka and never relinquished this lead. They had managed to secure for themselves a comforting, six-goal lead (8-2) at the start of the sixth chukka and went to win this crucial match 9-4. This result was surprising because when these two teams met in the league stages it had been a very different affair. UAE Polo Team had won that encounter 14-8. Dubai, a six-times winner of the Queen’s Cup, had clearly taken note of their opponent’s gameplan and effectively shut down UAE’s attack in this quarter-final contest. The 10-goaler Jeta Castagnola led this Dubai team from the front, seemed undaunted by the weather conditions and was brilliantly supported by every one of his Dubai team-mates.
The remaining two quarter-final games took place today (Sunday). The second La Dolfina team in the tournament, La Dolfina/Marques de Riscal took to the field at Noel Farm, against Sujan Indian Tigers. The first two chukkas delivered some lovely running play with both teams finding the flags. La Dolfina/Marques de Riscal was again fielding Luis Aznar in place of their injured patron, Alejandro Aznar, and this young team continued to impress. Juan Martin Zubia was strong for Sujan Indian Tigers, converting penalties and delivering some big shots up field but La Dolfina/Marques de Riscal’s captain, Poroto Cambiaso, worked hard to make sure his team stayed ahead. Ollie Cudmore helped Sujan Indian Tigers stay in the game in the second half with some great goals, while Zubia kept battling too, despite needing two visits to the ambulance in this match. However Poroto was in winning mode, staying ultra calm while successfully negotiating traffic. He scored 10 of his team’s 16 goals, delivering a masterclass of how to play polo under pressure.
The last game of the day was a tight affair between Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha’s King Power, winners of the tournament in 2015, and a new team to the Queen’s Cup, Sunjay Kapur’s Aureus. King Power started strongly with opening goals from Pablo MacDonough and Tommy Beresford. Aureus replied in the second thanks to some strong play from Tomas Panelo. He kept up the pressure in the third, firing through three further goals to none in reply from King Power. Aureus were now in the lead (5-3) and looking strong. Kapur’s team signalled their intent further when Mark Tomlinson fired through a goal from the first throw-in of the fourth chukka. Tomy’s brother Benjamin joined in the Aureus goalscoring and Kapur’s team had successfully maintains their two-goal advantage going into the sixth chukka. King Power started fighting back in this final chukka. MacDonough found the flags within a minute, followed by a goal off the stick of Beresford to level the score. With the clock ticking down, Beresford successfully converted a penalty two, pushing King Power back into the lead by one goal (10-9). Then, with less than 30 seconds left on the clock Ricardo Garros delivered a powerful hit to goal, shooting King Power through to Wednesday’s semi-finals.
Images copyright Pablo Ramirez
