The Australian Stingers women’s water polo team has suffered a shock 10-7 defeat against Canada in their opening match of the 2011 FINA World Championships in Shanghai.
Australia had entered the match as the favourites after winning 10-8 when the two sides met at this year’s FINA World League recently, but the Canadians got off to a blistering 3-0 first quarter lead and never looked like losing despite Australia getting within two goals with three and a half minutes left in the last period.
Playing a zone defence, the Canadians stifled the Australian attack and limited the Stingers to a shooting efficiency of just 22 percent, whilst shooting at 63 percent themselves.
It is a sorry start to the tournament for the Australians who had prepared well for the match and were determined to win to get their campaign off to a flying start.
Star centre forward and WAIS-AIS scholarship holder Gemma Beadsworth, who was playing her 178th Test on her 24th birthday, was bitterly disappointed after the game.
“It’s pretty disappointing, mainly because we had most of the play in the first quarter and they had just three shots at goal and scored them all and we couldn’t manage to put it away,” Beadsworth said.
“We’ve been playing well, we’ve been preparing for this for six weeks. Who knows what happened, if I knew I would be able to control it.”
“It’s not a great birthday present but there’ll be other birthdays.”
Beadsworth, ever the professional, was already looking ahead to the team’s next games and looking to atone.
“The next two games are must win games for us if we want to be kept in this competition and we will have to refocus and work out what we did wrong and get back on top of it.”
WAIS-AIS scholarship holder Glencora Ralph also represented the Stingers and along with Beadsworth scored one goal for the match.
A melancholy Stingers head coach Greg McFadden said the performance was more mental than physical.
“Very disappointing, virtually from the opening whistle the girls weren’t ready,” McFadden said.
“We had some plays put in place and we didn’t use them until four or five minutes into the game, it’s just disappointing.”
“Our shooting was diabolical. We spoke about shots that we wanted players to take and we fell back into old habits.
“It’s mental, I thought we’d had a really good preparation but Canada were up for the game and we weren’t up for the game today.”
The Stingers’ next game is on Tuesday against cross Tasman rivals New Zealand in what is now a must win fixture for the Australians to regain some confidence. When the two nations met last week in Perth, Australia won 18-5.
The Australian Sharks men’s team get their tournament underway at 14.10 (AEST) tomorrow against Romania.
–Australian Water Polo
