The Australian women’s water polo team, the Aussie Stingers, have gone down to the USA 10-9 in a thrilling match at the London Test Event in the Olympic Park’s new Water Polo Arena.
The Australian women’s water polo team, the Aussie Stingers, have gone down to the USA 10-9 in a thrilling match at the London Test Event in the Olympic Park’s new Water Polo Arena.
In a tight game that ebbed and flowed throughout, the scores were locked at two-all at the first break, five-all at halftime and seven-all with one term to play before the Americans scored the victory.
The American win was some sort of revenge for the Beijing Olympic silver medallists following Australia’s 7-4 gold medal triumph at January’s Water Polo Pan Pacs in Melbourne.
For the Stingers the loss follows yesterday’s 10-4 thrashing of hosts Great Britain.
Australian strike weapon Ash Southern scored five goals for the Stingers and said her side was positive despite the loss, identifying areas of improvement immediately after the game.
“I think we can take a lot out of the game,” Southern said.
“In defence we can concentrate more on not allowing any centre forward goals.
“It was a bit frustrating to be a goal up and seeing them score a goal and then again go a goal up and see them score again.
“If we concentrate more on that defence then our attack will come. Moving forward in the tournament defence will be the key.”
Southern said the chance to play the Test Event would help when the team arrived in London for the Olympics in July.
“It’s been a great experience so far and playing in front of the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of is good to get the nerves out early and hopefully I’ll be here back in July,” she said.
The Australian’s next game is against Hungary at 11pm AEST on Saturday night (May 5) with the winner expected to take on the USA in the gold medal match on Sunday.
Meanwhile, The Aussie Sharks, Australia’s London Olympic bound men’s team, have overcome a slow start to account for Japan 14-7 in their FINA World League Preliminary match in Shanghai.
The Sharks led 2-1 at the end of the first quarter and 5-3 at the main break before pulling away in the second half courtesy of some stout defence and a superior conversion rate in extra man and general play.
The win followed Australia’s 14-1 trouncing of China in the tournament’s first game.
The Sharks play fellow Olympic qualifier Kazakhstan on Saturday night at 9pm (AEST) before moving onto Chiba, Japan for the next round of preliminaries that start on Tuesday.
Water Polo Australia
