A great night for Long Eaton teams in the final round of this years Arena League saw the A team finish joint 2nd by 1 point (3rd on number of wins 10-9) which should secure the clubs 2nd highest ever finish in the league and leave them in the top 10 teams in the West Midlands. When you consider the size of the clubs we are up against in this region this is an amazing achievement. The B team finished 3rd in their final, again, beating A teams even though the team was missing 12 swimmers for various reasons. The only negative was the number of disqualifications, in the A gala there was only 2 DQ's on the night both for Long Eaton and the B team had 7. This is unacceptable and all were caused by basic mistakes. So when your coaches are telling you to count your strokes on backstroke, start properly when diving and know what you are doing, then you need to follow their instructions, lazy training = lazy performances.
Next season we need to have no disqualifications and everyone needs to look at the data I sent out, so they know what times are needed to win any races they may be involved and train in a manor that will enable them to win those races. This means high levels of attendance, listening to instructions and training at the right intensity and skill level in every session along with making sure we do pre pool and post pool to aid recovery and avoid injuries. We can do this and we can go on upsetting bigger teams. This was a great performance but it could of been so much better with a few tweaks.
A massive thank you to all the volunteers who help run the galas from Officials to support staff and Team Managers. I am very proud of this years teams and performances form everyone.
The bank of Orange T shirts looked, great so its over to the parents now to follow the togetherness of the swimmers by sitting together, supporting every Long Eaton swimmer and wearing your T shirts with pride in the stands. I still have more T shirts available and they are only £5 each, a little cheaper than a replica football kit!
