Great to know about your son, the club I swim has also a waterpolo team but it requires a different skill set than swimming. Like a lot tougher with the constant contact, sometimes I've played against the teens or the girls team but even then I end up all bruised and sore the next day. It's really not a sport for me but I like to watch it.
Yup, I can see that happening and that's what I waas talking about. Being a strong swimmer doesn't necessarily transfer to waterpolo, the main difference for me is the swimming technique; in swimming is all about technique and efficiency, you want to maintain your body above the water and hold your head down in order to reduce drag. In waterpolo you have to keep your head high almost all the time and swimming with that position is super demanding, it's not very efficient so that alone would deplete your stamina quite quickly and we're not yet to the part where the other guy is drowning you and kicking your body and crotch underwater while trying to control the damn ball.
The first time I played against people who actually practiced waterpolo it felt like a truck hit me and they were going easy on me. Since then I was scared to play even against girls and would just pass the ball as quickly as I could but they would still beat me and drown me. I think you also need to be very aggressive and some kind of masochist.
Being a really good swimmer is a great base for playing polo but as you say the technique is very different. When my son switched t polo at 11/12 his swim coach threw him out of the swim squad because polo butchers your technique.
At the younger ages you don't train often enough not to do additional swim training but as you get older and training goes to 10+ 3 hr sessions a week which incorporates swimming you tend to stop swimming squads.
Out of the pool my son is a gentle giant. In the pool he takes no shit and never takes a step back but is also good at remaining calm and often gets hotheads rolled.
Not great footage but from a pre-season trial tournament. He is #7. Takes a foul on the right wing then drives in to centre forward. Turns the centre back when he gets a pass in then takes the major foul (you have to release the ball) which draws an exclusion. He then scores at the end of the extra man play (20 seconds without the excluded player). You will see lighter utility players (and particularly the women) get much further out of the water but not easy to get 118kgs out of the water to the same height.
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