Aussie Stingers finish sixth and Sharks 11th at FINA World Championships

In her first World Championship game as captain, Zoe Arancini lead the Stingers to a dominant 19-6 win over Kazakhstan, with Arancini named player of the match. Continuing where they left off, the Stingers dominant New Zealand 11-2, before a similar score of 17-5 against Brazil saw them sweep their pool matches.

Having moved directly in to the quarterfinals a tough Hungarian team with an Olympic bronze to their name and home crowd support, the Stingers put up a tough fight, narrowly missing advancing to the quarterfinals by one goal.

The Stingers defeated Greece 16-14 in the first game of the 5-8 playoffs, keeping their hopes of a top five finish alive.

Spain came out firing in the 5-6 playoffs and despite narrowing the Spanish advantage to one the Spanish were too strong taking the win eight goals to five.

Head Coach Paul Oberman said although a tough result in their last game, the growth and development of the team over the course of the four week tour has been outstanding.

“I am proud of the growth and development in the team over the last four weeks.

“We didn’t have our best shooting game, although we created plenty of chances. We must be more clinical in games and training to improve.

“This tour has been a great experience for the girls, really good positive and productive learning. We had three good hard tough games this week.

“We had a good first week at the tournament, and proud of how we played in the second week. Onwards and upwards from here,” he said.

In the men’s competition Tokyo Olympians Tim Putt and George Ford and debutants John Hedges and Luke Pavillard made up nearly a third of the Aussie Sharks squad.

After cruising to victory over Kazakhstan in their opening games, the Sharks produced an outstanding display against Olympic Champions Serbia in game two. The closely contested game saw the teams tied for much of the competition, only to see Serbia take a final goal to win 5-6. In their final pool game, the United States were too strong winning 12 goals to nine.

With the pool games completed, Italy proved too strong in the cross over game sending the Sharks to play for the minor placings. Starting the 9-12 rounds with a loss to Japan lined them up to play for 11th and 12th against South Africa. In a dominant display the Sharks finished 11th with a 19-4 win, with Pavillard scoring five goals.