Australia’s women’s water polo team is looking to extend a near-unbeaten run in 2012 and boost hopes of Olympics gold when it takes on Great Britain in a five-Test series in Canberra.
While the two sides are matching up against each other for the first time in six years, Stingers coach Greg McFadden said the series should prove a key barometer for how the team is tracking in the lead-up to the Games.
“You’re always a bit apprehensive when you play a team you don’t know much about, but we’ll get to see what their strengths and weaknesses are,” he told AAP on Monday.
“And we’re also still experimenting with our team, so it’s going to be a good opportunity to see how they’ve progressed in a month since the last time we were together.”
The Stingers have enjoyed a stellar start to the year after wins against China in the Canada Cup and the United States in both the PanPacs and a three-Test series in January.
McFadden has made no secret of the Stingers’ hopes for gold in London, and says the team is looking to build on an already-positive start to the year.
“Our results over January and February have been fantastic, so we’re building a good base for where we want to be in July,” he said.
But he warned that one of the Stingers’ biggest weaknesses was a tendency to rest on their laurels.
“We’re a lot more mentally tough since 2010, but sometimes our downfall is we get complacent,” McFadden continued.
“After the world championships (in 2011 when the Stingers came fifth), we say that it was one of the best things that could have happened to us because that proved that you have to be switched on.
“There’s areas we still need to work on, but if we play our best water polo, we’re going to be very hard to beat.”
Last week McFadden cut his Olympic squad from 19 to 17, with dual Olympian Rebecca Rippon a significant casualty, but one that proves just how strong the squad’s depth is.
The Stingers are relying more heavily on youth in London, with five Australian juniors now on the squad, including centre forward Ash Southern.
Southern, who like most of the Olympic squad is still finishing the final weeks of the national league, was particularly confident about the Stingers’ hopes in London given their recent record against the US, considered their bogey team.
“In the Test series, we won 2-1 and the game we lost, we weren’t playing our best, so if we can play that bad and not lose by that much, that’s certainly something to be positive about,” she said.
The Test series against Great Britain wraps up on February 28.
