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Waterpolo - 27. July 2011.

Stingers trounce Olympic Champions in Shanghai.

The Aussie Stingers have trounced 2008 Olympic champions the Netherlands 12-7 in their women’s water polo World Championships classification match in Shanghai.


The result means Australia will now play pre-tournament favourite and world number one the USA on Friday morning (1055 local/1255 AEST) to decide fifth and sixth in a match many thought would be the gold medal fixture.

Playing less than 48 hours after suffering a heartbreaking 14-12 penalty shootout quarterfinal loss to Italy, the Stingers came out a totally different team than they had been earlier in the tournament and put on their best performance of the championships.

Earlier problems with shot efficiency and a tendency to start slowly disappeared and the Australians scored on eight of 15 shots in the first half including a perfect two from two in extra man. It was a far cry from the 20 per cent shooting and zero from 11 extra man count against Italy.

In the third quarter the Stingers stuttered momentarily, allowing the Dutch to go on an unanswered three-goal charge but by the time the last period began the game was all but in the bag.

Leading the way throughout was centre forward Bronwen Knox.

Knox put in one of the tournament’s dominant performances and by far her best game for some time, scoring four goals and leaving the Dutch in all sorts of bother whenever she sat in at centre forward.

After the game the Beijing Olympian said she and the team had a point to prove after bowing out of medal contention.

“After a disappointing game against Italy its nice to go out there and make sure we’re still in the mix and show everyone what we’ve got,” Knox said.

“You don’t want to take a step back, you’re always trying to improve and improve and improve and today I think we did that.”

Knox said the team would now try and produce a carbon copy against the USA.

“The US have been our long time rivals and it’s going to be good to match up against them and hopefully come away with the win,” she said.

“We will treat the match like it’s a gold medal match. Today was essentially our semi final and Friday will be our gold medal match, even if it’s not for the medals.”

Australian head coach Greg McFadden marvelled at Knox’s performance and said the Queenslander had the potential to be a star of the game.

“We’ve been saying for a long time that Bronwen can be one of the best players in the world and when she plays like that today she is,” McFadden said.

“It’s something she has to figure out, to get that consistency.”

McFadden said his team was driven by dissatisfaction with their quarterfinal performance and the victory was aided in a big way by the Stingers’ dramatically improving their shooting.

“It was just determination and they were driven by disappointment,” he said.

“Everyone realised how poorly we played against Italy in the first half but they stuck at it and it took us a good 20 hours to get over that defeat but last night we had a really good training session and the mood was a lot better and it showed in the water.”

“When you shoot 55 per cent at half time instead of what seems like five per cent it makes a big difference.

“It was great, the girls played a really good game. Everything we talked about they took into account. We scored some very nice goals. They just worked really well as a team.”

For the Stingers Alicia McCormack played a typically sturdy game in goals, while Gemma Beadsworth and Nicola Zagame both shone.

The Aussie Sharks men’s team play their final match of the tournament against Canada tomorrow morning at 1050 (1250 AEST) to decide ninth and tenth places.

 

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