Portable goals help keep Waikato Water Polo Club afloat

It’s been a challenging year at Waikato Water Polo Club. Its main playing venue at Waterworld in Hamilton, New Zealand, closed for refurbishment work, forcing the club to find alternative deep and shallow water venues for its training.

The loss of its main venue cast doubt over the club’s 2018 season and had organisers and players questioning how they would be able to keep club and school competitions running. It also posed a challenge for its representative teams, which needed to keep training for upcoming major tournaments, including the biennial Pan Pacific Youth Water Polo Festival held in Auckland in July.

Club President Mark Harvey said the club searched for a new pool to run its training events but struggled to find a suitable venue that could store its existing three-metre-wide aluminium goals.

Carting the goals back and forth for every training and competition day would be time consuming and was going to require a trailer, he said.

Fortunately, the club found an ideal solution in the purchase of high-quality inflatable Water Polo Packagoals from sporting solutions provider Packaworld International.

Mr Harvey said the new goals allowed the club to quickly set up at a new venue – St Peters School in Cambridge – ensuring its 280 water polo players could continue to train and its Flippa Ball competitions could keep on running. When further pool space was required the goals’ easy portability meant they could be moved to other local school pools to provide additional pop-up training venues, he said.

“The new goals really got us out of trouble. Throughout the year we’ve been able to transport them in the back of a car and train wherever. We would not have survived without the goals”

Packaworld Chief Executive Peter Roberts said he was pleased the goals were able to make such a positive difference for a club in his home country of New Zealand.

“Our goals are supporting water polo clubs around the world, but it’s always special to hear how a product you’ve developed is making a difference so close to home.”

Mr Harvey said water polo was a fast-growing sport in New Zealand and some clubs struggled to find appropriate venues that could accommodate their competitions and store aluminium goals after use.

The inflatable Packagoals could overcome this issue, allowing clubs to bring water polo to new locations, including smaller aquatic centres and even harbours and beaches, he said.

Waikato Water Polo Club has boys and girls representative teams in all age groups New Zealand water polo national tournaments. Its Under-18 team finished fourth at the 2018 New Zealand Water Polo 18 & Under National Championships.

For more information about portable Water Polo Packagoals visit the product page>>