The Australian Stingers women’s water polo team has bounced back at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai by trouncing Trans Tasman rivals New Zealand 12-4.
The victory comes off the back of Australia’s shock loss to Canada in the tournament’s opening game on Sunday and puts the Stingers back on track to be around at the business end of the Championships.
The Stingers win was supported by three goals from WAIS-AIS athlete Glencora Ralph whilst fellow WAIS-AIS scholarship holder Gemma Beadsworth again found the net for the Australians.
The Stingers began the game in the same manner of their loss to Canada with miss fire after miss fire, scoring on just five of 22 shots in the opening half but at the other end of the pool Australia was brilliant defensively, forcing seven turnovers and keeping the Kiwis scoreless.
In the second half the Stingers improved their shot efficiency and consolidated their ruthless defence to seal the win with nine different players getting on the score sheet.
Rising star Glencora Ralph, who top scored for the Stingers with three goals including two beautiful lobs, said the team could be proud of their defence but still needed to improve on their shooting strike rate.
“Defensively we can take some confidence from that,” Ralph said.
“We only allowed four goals so our defence was strong, we just need to improve on our shooting.
“We were bringing ourselves on (to score) and just not executing in the end. At least we’ve got the (scoring) options there.”
Australian head coach Greg McFadden echoed Ralph’s comments and said if his side could fix their issues in attack they would be a threat to any team.
“Defensively we were very good and even (in the loss) against Canada I thought our defence was good, the only problem was when we made a mistake against Canada it was a huge one and we got punished for it,” McFadden said.
“The problem is our execution – our shooting, our extra man conversion, we’ve really got to work on that and if we can get that right we’ll be dangerous.”
The Stingers’ next opponent is Uzbekistan (Thursday, 2140 AEST) who has suffered big losses to both New Zealand and Canada already this week.
The Aussie Sharks men’s team face hosts China tomorrow night in a sold out fixture at 2300 AEST. The Sharks got their tournament off to a flying start with a memorable comeback win over Romania on Monday.
-Australian Water Polo
