Despite a desperate second half comeback the Aussie Sharks men’s water polo team has gone down to Spain 9-8 in their World Championships quarterfinal qualifier in Shanghai.
The loss means the Sharks are out of medal contention and will now play either Japan or Germany in the phase to decide positions 9-12.
As has been the case for much of the tournament Australia’s shooting efficiency let them down terribly and they were shooting at 20 per cent in the first half and subsequently trailing 5-2.
Spain pushed the lead out to 7-2 early in the third and it looked like the game was in the bag before the Australians launched a comeback that brought them to within one goal several times.
Leading the way was the future of the Australian team, 20-year-old Aidan Roach and 19-year-old Aaron Younger who bagged a double each and played like they belonged with the best players in the pool. WAIS-AIS athlete Younger was joined in the match squad by fellow WAIS-AIS athlete Luke Quinlivan.
After the match a shattered Australian head coach John Fox said his team’s failure to stick to their game plan in the first half was their undoing.
“It was too little at the start,” Fox said. “We shot to the goalkeeper’s strengths in the first half.
“We had ten shots and two were goals but the rest were shot to where we talked about not putting it.
“When we started to shoot high and played to our game plan we did the right things but until then we didn’t. We scored two goals, it should have been five.
“We shot to where their goalie’s strength is instead of placing them in the corners – it’s an execution error.”
Fox said the team’s journey to the London Olympics had already started and they would need to work hard on their shooting efficiency and shot selection over the next 12 months.
“We will try and finish as high as we can now,” Fox said.
“We started our Olympic campaign a month ago when we started touring before this tournament so this is still part of our Olympic preparation and we’ll keep working on things that we know work and keep working towards getting the best personnel to do the job.
“Fitness isn’t an issue, our defence is great, we’ll work on shooting and our skill execution and we need to start better.”
Sharks driver Billy Miller was devastated after the match and like Fox said the team simply didn’t follow the plan in the opening half.
“Before the game in our team talk we talked about the goalie and his weaknesses and one of those weaknesses was around his head in the first half we didn’t throw that shot and kept trying to beat him under his arms,” Miller explained.
“The second half AJ Roach stood up and showed us how to do it and the rest of the team tried to follow but it was a little bit too late.”
– Australian Water Polo
