The Australian men’s water polo team have won the FINA World League Inter-Continental Cup in a gold medal thriller against Japan.

Meanwhile the Aussie women narrowly missed out on a similar result, settling for silver after a courageous effort against the USA finished in a penalty shootout.

The strong performances from both the Aussie Sharks & Aussie Stingers will give the Australians confidence as they prepare for the FINA World League Finals and 2019 FINA World Championships in South Korea. Both tournaments are crucial events for the teams ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Australia secured the 10-8 win with strong defence led by the Australian captain and goalkeeper Joel Dennerley (NSWIS) who was outstanding all night.

“We knew that we had to play solid defence,” Dennerley said.

“They’re really aggressive on the drives, we know they take their opportunities at extra man, everyone had a role to play and I was happy to do my job today.

“Definitely a tough contest. We knew they would come out and fight the four quarters. We had a tough round game (between Japan) that went down to the last few seconds, we knew we needed to be switched on from the beginning and play right the way through.”

Dennerley said the result will give the team a boost leading into a crucial period.

“This week’s been about us getting together as a team, we’re spread out all across the world and we used the opportunity to play some competitive matches. For the next few months we’ll build towards World League Finals and ultimately World Championships in July.

“Being isolated in Australia from Europe we need to take every opportunity to play some official matches against international opposition. For some of our younger guys who’ve only been in the squad for a few years it’s been a great opportunity to play on home soil in front of a great crowd. So we’re very privileged to be able to do that.

In the women’s final, Australia levelled the score with 40 seconds to go but a penalty shootout went against the Aussies as they finished 12-14 (9-9 at full time).

 

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