WHEN the British Water Polo League comes to Edinburgh in little more than a week, it will be just reward for Gael Logan for the progress water polo here has made in the past few years.

Logan is captain of Caledonia Women’s water polo team, which is made up of Scotland’s best female players, and being able to play a round of the British League on their home patch is proof that they are now recognised as being able to compete with the best in Britain, something that she wouldn’t have been able to say just a few years ago.

“The Edinburgh weekend is a real illustration of how much we’ve improved because previously, the league would have never entertained the thought of coming up to Scotland,” Logan says.

“We got promoted into Division One a few seasons ago and a lot of people thought that it was just a flash in the pan. But we’ve played well, improved each year and consistently kept our place, and it’s great that those in power are now acknowledging that we’re here to stay.”

The round of fixtures takes place next weekend at the Royal Commonwealth Pool, and Caledonia will take on Liverpool Lizards, Manchester and Leeds Sharks in what will be this season’s second round of matches.

Round one took place in Gloucester at the start of the month with Caledonia losing both their matches, although the second was a narrow defeat against Coventry.

Logan, who has been a stalwart of the team for more than a decade, admits to being disappointed that her team didn’t notch up a win but she remains encouraged that nowadays Caledonia’s matches, more often than not, are decided by tiny margins, which is a huge improvement from some of the heavy defeats that the Scots had to take in previous years.

“Our performances recently have been so encouraging. In years gone past, we were seen as the team that you could score loads of points against but now we’re not,” she says.

“Other teams are worried about us now and we’re going toe to toe with teams which we weren’t able to in the past.

“So we’ve shown that our promotion wasn’t a one-off and we’re not going right back down.”

Logan has been at the top of Scottish water polo for more than a decade, and says that despite the lack of financial assistance that the sport receives, she loves every minute of it.

Her commitment to the sport was illustrated by the date of her wedding – she got married last Friday because that fitted in with the league fixtures, meaning she’s available for the league weekend.

Now in her 30s, Logan entertained thoughts of retirement earlier this year, but on reflection she realised that there’s nothing that she would rather be doing than playing.

“My friends will ask are you not retiring soon?” she laughs. “This summer, we were in Prague for the Eight Nations and in my head, I thought: ‘That’s me done.’ After the tournament, I told the chair of the committee that I was retiring. I didn’t really know why I was, I just felt I should.

“And he just said to me: ‘You’re a long time retired.’ He was right – I’m still fit enough and I’m still making the starting seven, so I haven’t actually got round to retiring yet.

“I just love it. What else would I rather be doing at the weekend? Nothing.”

Logan, a former swimmer, may be one of the older players in the team but she is most certainly not being overshadowed by her younger team-mates. She was recently named Scottish player of the year and she suggests that her game smarts is what is preventing her from slipping down the pecking order. “I think I’ve got cleverer,” she says. “The younger players will try and batter up and down the pool whereas because of the position I play, I cover less ground but I’m smarter with what I do. But I train hard too – you just can’t get away with not being fit in water polo.”

To suggest that water polo is a physical game is a criminal understatement. A better description of the sport is that it’s brutal and Logan is no stranger to a few injuries, with the most damage being done to her at the Four Nations last year, when she returned home from Dublin with a black eye and a dislocated knee.

“You should have seen the state of me,” she laughs. “But these things happen. It’s a very physical game – it’s definitely a contact sport. You’re holding your player pretty much the whole game and when you’re swimming, you’re bumping them constantly, but it’s not a dirty sport.

“Generally, it’s not a nasty sport and I’m a really physical player, so I absolutely love that side of it.”