The Spanish maintained their undefeated form, dominating from the outset and leading throughout.

Saturday’s loss meant the Aussies were relying on Serbia to defeat Croatia later in the day to be able to book a quarter finals berth. But the Croats, desperate to keep their Olympic campaign alive, stepped up and were able to take a two point win over Serbia and thus ending Australia’s chance to proceed.

While Spain and their European counterparts came into the Olympics with a solid amount of international competition under their belt through FINA and European tournaments, the Australians have had no international matches for more than 18 months due to travel restrictions with the global pandemic.

The Aussie Sharks delivered moments of brilliance throughout the preliminary rounds including an inspired win over 2012 Olympic champions Croatia earlier in the week.

While it wasn’t the Olympic debut Blake Edwards had hoped for, he admitted the lack of competition certainly didn’t play into the Aussie advantage.

“Disappointed… we knew it was going to be a challenge coming into this competition, not playing together for 18 months, it was a telling point,” said Edwards.

“18 months ago we were beating these teams and we were extremely competitive… but unfortunately with COVID (pandemic) in our lead up, preparation didn’t go our way.

“To our guys' credit, we gave everything we could, unfortunately we just weren’t good enough.

“They (Spain) have a lot of chemistry playing together with the majority of the team playing for Barceloneta (water polo club), they are very skillful, very fast like us.

“We have some fantastic players in this team, with a lot of experience.

“I”m extremely proud of the boys and what we did with what we had available. You can’t discredit the effort we put in,” he said.

The Australians still have one match left against Kazakhstan on Monday 2 August and will be looking to finish their Olympic campaign on a high.

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