WATER POLO:Australia dominated against reigning Olympic champions USA, leading the game from the start to finish with a 13-6 victory.

The Australian women’s water polo team, the Stingers, are in Rio as part of a six nation competition where they will meet top water polo nations Brazil, Canada, China, Netherlands and USA.

After a 6-6 draw to Canada in the opening match last Friday, the Stingers had a stand out weekend of competition defeating powerhouse USA and the Netherlands.

On the back of their draw against Canada the day before, the Aussie Stingers were determined to come out strong and walk away with the win.

Stingers Coach Greg McFadden was pleased with the team’s performance against the USA coming off the back of the draw.

“We’ve been working towards this tour and last night (against Canada) I was a bit disappointed in our performance.

“The challenge for the girls was to come and prove that what we’ve been working on is actually working – they played as a unit, they played tough water polo and it was just fantastic,” said McFadden.

At the end of the first quarter the Stingers had set themselves up nicely with a 3-1 lead thanks to scorers Keesja Gofers (2) and Nicola Zagame (1).

It was the second quarter where the Aussies made their move, with Ashleigh Southern (2), Rowie Webster (1), Nicola Zagame (1), Hannah Buckling (1) and Captain Bronwen Knox (1) providing the team with a commanding lead of 9-3.

Team USA fought back in the third quarter with both teams forced into a strong defensive game which resulted in only one goal a piece, with Aussie Hannah Buckling notching the Stingers to a 10-4 lead.

It was Australia’s for the taking and the Stingers fought off the USA, with three more goals in the final quarter by Zoe Arancini, Nicola Zagame and Isobel Bishop giving the team a final score of 13-6.

WATER POLO AUSTRALIA