The Australian Sharks men’s water polo team has suffered another heart wrenching loss at the FINA World League finals in Florence, going down to Montenegro 8-7 in the playoff for fifth place.
The one goal loss, that saw the Sharks overrun and outscored five goals to two in the second half, followed a single goal defeat by eventual silver medallists Italy and an earlier draw and subsequent loss in a penalty shootout to Montenegro at this tournament alone.
WAIS-AIS athlete Aaron Younger was listed in Australia’s best player group following the match, whilst Tim Cleland also featured from WAIS.
Last year the Australians lost tight games by two goals or less to European powerhouses’ Serbia, Croatia, Spain, Montenegro and Romania in what has become a worrying trend for Sharks Head Coach John Fox.
“The lack of self belief some players have in tight games is hurting us,” Fox said.
“We cannot keep accepting one goal losses and draws in games that we clearly should be winning. We need to turn this trend around.”
In a bid to overturn their earlier penalty shootout defeat at the hands of Montenegro the Australians came into the match fired up and they were on song from the opening swim off, jumping out to a 3-0 lead before the match had reached the seven minute mark courtesy of two strikes by captain Sam McGregor and another to Richie Campbell.
The second quarter was more evenly matched with both teams scoring two, Australia’s via Rhys Howden and rising star Aaron Younger. Defence was the feature of the third term with Montenegro netting the period’s solitary goal to trail the Sharks 4-5 at the last break.
But in a frantic last stanza Montenegro scored first to tie it up before Younger would get his second with six and half minutes to go to give Australia the lead for the last time.
From there it was all downhill and the Montenegrins ensured Australia were relegated to sixth place, two spots behind last year’s impressive fourth, with three straight goals.
In the end it was the Montenegrins superior extraman attack that won the game, six of their eight goals coming with the one man advantage compared to Australia’s two from seven chances.
The Sharks will return to Australia this week before heading to Singapore for a training camp ahead of this year’s biggest international tournament, the FINA World Championships in Shanghai beginning July 18.
Australia has been drawn to play Romania, host nation China and World League gold medallists Serbia (in that order) in the Group stage of the World Championships and ideally would be hoping to come into the Serbian fixture undefeated. The Sharks thumped China 14-4 at the World League.
–Water Polo Australia
