An extra time thriller has seen the Australian men’s water polo team, the Aussie Sharks, suffer a fighting 12-9 loss to Montenegro in the bronze medal game at the FINA World League Super Final in Dubai.
Despite both sides going goal for goal for the entirety of the encounter, the loss was a bitter pill to swallow for the Aussies, who had led for the majority of the match, only to see Montenegro come from behind to seal the win in a penalty shootout.
Highlights for Australia included London Olympian Aidan Roach providing an outstanding swimming effort to score during the final quarter, while WAIS athlete Aaron Younger demonstrated his attacking prowess with a double in the third period. Younger was joined in the Australian set-up by fellow WAIS athletes George Ford and Ed Slade.
Roach opened the scoring for the game, with two goals in quick succession delivering the Aussies an important buffer. Montenegro responded with just over two and a half minutes remaining for the scoreboard to read 2-1 in Australia’s favour at the first break.
Sharks captain Richie Campbell scored first in the second quarter, bouncing the shot over the head of the Montenegro keeper. Soon after, the Sharks defence was tested as the Montenegrins scored to stay within one goal of the lead, equalising soon after. With just under a minute and a half remaining, Jarrod Gilchrist delivered his first goal of the game for the Aussies, only for Montenegro to respond, keeping the scores tied 4-4 come half time.
It was again the Aussies who drew first blood in the third term as Aaron Younger scored from the perimeter to hand the lead back to the Sharks. As had been the trend for the game to that point, Montenegro responded. The Australian’s again looked to Younger as the quarter drew to a close with the West Australian delivering the goods to have the Sharks leading 6-5 at the final exchange.
Tight defence from both teams saw the final stanza scoreless for the opening two minutes before Montenegro this time scored first. Hungry for the win, Roach stepped up his game to swim the ball into space before finding the back of the cage to score his third for the game. Billy Miller also scored, receiving a pop pass into centre forwardfrom Campbell with just 40 seconds remaining on the clock.
Desperate to equalise, Montenegro scored within the dying moments of the game to send the teams to a penalty shootout.
Montenegro began the shootout proceedings with a successful attempt, as did the Sharks with Campbell delivering for the Aussies. Unfortunately for the Sharks, a flawlessdisplay by Montenegro, and near misses by the Australian’s, saw the win and the bronze medal go begging for the Aussies.
Sharks coach Elvis Fatovic said it was a strong performance from the Aussies against a tough competition.
“We played our best game of the tournament against a more experienced team, and we came so close to winning,” Fatovic said.
“Unfortunately we were unlucky in the end, thepenalty shootout is always a roulette.
“I am very proud of the presentation of our team, this ishow we want to play in the future, whileof course improve in areas of our game.
“In the end I want to congratulate all the players and this game, it’s performances like this that help us become one of the best teams. All European teams have many games like this throughout the year and for us this is aone off experience. Hopefully in the World Cup we will win atough game like this.”
The Sharksnow have a rest on theirreturn to Australia before beginning theirpreparationfor the World Cup.
-WaterPoloAus
