Champions do believe! - Australian Water Polo Inc

Hi Sharks supporters,
I've just returned from the Junior World Championships in Greece where the Aussie boys
managed a very creditable fourth placing.
Whilst it was unfortunate not to win a medal, the players and coaching staff, led by Adam
Richardson, can feel very proud that they managed to make it through to the top four- a big
improvement on the last world championship result for this group of players.
It augers very well for the future to have players of this calibre coming through the ranks.
Some notable individual performances were shown by Aaron Younger, who backed up from
senior world championships, Sam Quinn, who played a dominant CB role, and the form of both of
the goalkeepers.
All players made a solid contribution, ably led by Blake Edwards as captain. It means that our
senior programmes will be well supplied throughout the coming years and certainly beyond
London.
The Sharks…..
Focusing on the performances of the senior national teams this year it was not a great result at
the world Championships (9 th ) but nevertheless an improvement upon past years.
Something that immediately stands out is the inability to win close games in tight situations.
Right across the board from seniors through to the juniors, all teams have been guilty of blowing
chances to either win medals or at least progress through to the finals.
This has occurred through losses in penalty shootouts (WL finals, WUG finals) or failing to
convert situations in the final minutes of the game that would secure us a win (Seniors and
Juniors games against Spain are ones that spring to mind where we did not take a shot in XA in
last minute of the respective games).
The competition is so close amongst the top 10 teams in the world. If we had defeated Spain in
the world championships who knows what the next result may have been facing up against the
Italians, who went on to win the gold medal after overcoming Spain in a tight quarterfinal match
Whilst we are now consistently close and very competitive against all teams, including the
traditional powerhouse countries of Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Hungary, we need to instil
the self-belief that we can actually win the important games when it matters.
The Serbian game is probably the most disappointing and frustrating game of the World
Championships, in that we were up for the game and we believe we had a definite chance of
winning.
However due to controversial circumstances associated with a brutality call (a retaliation which
was ill-disciplined but the instigator was not penalised even though there was a clear elbow under
the referees nose) and some perplexing decisions, we weren't able to play to our potential.
We were very limited having to play a player down for four minutes (in which we conceded three
goals), then having another player ejected for a very soft disrespect call, meaning we were down
to 11 players in the final quarter.
We lost the game 12-9. Again, a great result given the circumstances, but not satisfying.

The outcome of the Serbia game also impacted upon the Spain game where we had to play with
12 players due to the brutality suspension. We can’t dwell on the past, but it did adversely affect
our rotations and in the dying minutes it would've been fantastic to have extra player to call upon,
especially as we looked like overrunning Spain, coming from four down in the third quarter to
level the scores in the last.
We're certainly knocking on the door and we have already conducted post championship and
season reviews.
Across the board I am asking everyone - players, staff, management, service providers - to give
that extra 10 to 20% to ensure that we can lift ourselves from the middle or so rankings between
6 to 10 into the top four by London.
The players…..
I was very impressed this season with the abilities of some of the younger players to step up into
international competition.
Aaron Younger was fantastic, Aidan Roach, who struggled to make the team initially, certainly
proved his worth once we got to Shanghai. Joel Dennerley found form in goals towards the end of
the tournament.
Other notable performances came from Richie Campbell who is probably playing the most
consistent water polo of his career and the Player’s Player Award winner Anthony Martin. We
also had the return of Gavin Woods, first time back since Beijing. With consistent training and
match conditioning he will only get better in the build up to London.
The future looks very good if we can gel this squad together. That combined with the possible
return of one or two experienced players will help us in achieving a top four result.
World Unis…..
If we briefly look at the World University Games team they also suffered some misfortune in that
they lost a penalty shoot out to Macedonia.
If they had won this they would've progressed through to a quarterfinal play-off against Japan,
which we would have been quite confident of defeating, to progress to top four.
Instead the disappointment of the penalty loss probably got to the team and they lost the next
game to France to have to play off for 12 to 14th position.
Disappointing results absolutely, but what I like to focus upon are some positives that came out
the WUG.
The return of Jamie Beadsworth was fantastic. Just to see him playing again in international
competition for the first time since Beijing 2008 was morale boosting, given the difficulties he has
had to overcome in the past few years. Johnno Cotterill in his role as captain made a reasonable
return to international competition too after missing the world championships team.
Back in the pool….
Most senior players have now resumed training in preparation for our first training camp which is
immediately following the under 16 national championships in Melbourne. Oct 9-13 th The WUG
players have another week off and the juniors who competed in Greece have until the end of
September. All senior players who toured this year have received a high degree of feedback

through video, written and of course verbal avenues. This will be utilised to assist players setting
their goals- both short term and long-term leading up to London.
The Future….
Following the World Championships I addressed the playing group and delivered a sombre but
positive message to a team that had just experienced a win over Canada to finish 9 th but was still
rightly jilted that we had not got an opportunity to be playing in the finals. It was at the same time
that Cadel Evans won the Tour de France in his seventh attempt. And following this we've just
seen Sam Stosur win Wimbledon in what was her fifth attempt.
The message essentially said that we have to be persistent; we know that we've got the
gameplay required; we know that we got the ability; we will have done all the work in the pool, in
the gym; what we must have is the belief and confidence to achieve our ultimate. Champions do
believe!
John Fox
Head Coach, Australian Men’s Water Polo Team