Dubai: Last year’s losing finalists Hungary got their Fina Waterpolo World League Super Final off to a strong start with an 11-5 opening group stage win over Australia at the Hamdan Sports Complex on Monday.
Hungary’s Balazs Harai, Denes Varga, Marton Szivos and Norbert Hosnyanszky all scored two apiece in a comprehensive victory for the current world champions and record nine time Olympic gold medallists.
Harai got an early brace and Denes Varga added the third for Hungary before Aidan Roach pulled one back for Australia in the first quarter. Hungary then raced ahead with a further three goals before half-time from Marton Toth, Szivos and Hosnyanszky to make it 6-1 at the interval.
Szivos and Hosnyanszky both added to their earlier efforts in the third quarter before Richard Campbell and Roach pulled two back for Australia. At 8-3, the damage was already done before the fourth quarter where Daniel Varga and Denes Varga added a further two. John Cotterill and Campbell tried to stem the tide with their contributions but Gyorgy Vamos compounded Australia’s misery late on.
Hungary coach Tibor Benedek was surprised by Australia’s performance. “We drew 9-9 with Australia at the world championships last year so I expected a much harder match,” he said.
“Australia were without a centre forward though, that’s why their attack wasn’t so efficient.
“It was a typical opening game, very slow, and we need to be faster for our next match. We will try to improve before the second half of the tournament, but this was a nice start.”
Australia coach Elvis Fatovic said he had also expected more from his team.
“Hungary are the world champions and we are without four players, however we expected to play much better, so we must change something for the next game and prepare something different in offence. We must be much more dangerous.”
Elsewhere, defending champions and record seven-time winners Serbia also started strongly with a 21-9 opening group stage win over China thanks to five goals from Andrija Prlainovic.
A three-game round robin decides the seedings for Thursday’s quarter-finals where first, second, third and fourth ranked teams from Group A play fourth, third, second and first placed sides from Group B, respectively.
This tournament not only gives European teams the perfect chance to prepare for next month’s European Championships in Budapest, Hungary, from July 14 to 27, but the two finalists will also qualify to next year’s World Championships in Kazan, Russia. The champions will also take home a cheque for $100,000 (Dh367,000).
