WATER POLO: The Australian women’s water polo team has kick started their Rio campaign with a strong, dominant win over Russia 14-4.

It was the start the Aussies were hoping for after playing Russia six weeks ago and managing only a one goal win in the last four seconds.

Leading goal scorer for the Aussies was dual Olympian Ash Southern, who said the solid win was what the team had hoped for.

“We were just trying to stick to our plan, keep the nerves in and went into the game with a lot of energy and it all paid off,” said Southern.

“It was a tough game and we shot really well today. They came out firing in the second half which we expected – it was important we didn’t get too far ahead of ourselves. But we stuck to our game plan and came away with a really solid win.

“We knew if everyone concentrated on their own game we could come away with the win and we knew they’d come out with a strong counter so we had to shut that down."

The Australians were impressive in both attack and defence, with Olympic debutant Kelsey Wakefield proving impressive in goals.

“Our defence was really good, we were structured and it just allowed heaps of blocks," said Wakefield.

“It’s given us a lot of confidence, it’s good to get one game out of the way, we still have five games to go.

Australia were dominant from the outset and managed to keep the Russian side scoreless until just before half time.

The group hope they can carry their form into game two where they will face a strong Italian team at 10.20am on Thursday August 11 (11.20pm Thursday August 11 AEST).

Lauren Ryan
olympics.com.au