Brits Fall to Reigning Champions in Barcelona
23rd July 2013The British Gas GBR Women’s Water Polo team fell to a second defeat of the 2013 World Championships against defending champions Greece.
Chloe Wilcox won the first swim off for Great Britain and it was Lisa Gibson who scored first after two minutes to put the Brits into an early lead.
Greece missed a man up opportunity on the counter attack before Christina Tsoukala converted a penalty after 5 minutes to draw the first quarter 1-all.
In the second there was nothing to choose between to the two sides with the score 3-3 at half-time. Greece had taken an early lead with a goal from Tsoukala but Gibson followed suit with a shot in front of the goal.
Alexandra Asimaki again put the Greeks ahead but Gibson-Byrne kept the Brits in the game to go into the half time break all square.
The reigning champions were not going to relinquish their title without a fight and came out aggressively in the third.
Despite Wilcox winning possession for the Brits at the swim off, Asimiki scored on the first attacking play for the Greeks, adding another less than a minute later.
Alkisti Avramidou then found her mark to put the Greek team three goals up.
Gibson-Byrne converted a penalty after three minutes to put the Brits back in the game but the champions held out and Ilektra Psouni added her name on the score sheet.
Angie Winstanley-Smith converted a man up to take the score to 7-5 but Asimaki did the same on the Greek counter to end the quarter 8-5 to Greece.
Wilcox again was the fastest out of the blocks in the fourth but Tsoukala scored the third to extend their lead to 9-5. Wilcox scored just 20 seconds later converting a man –up.
Asimaki scored her fifth of the match before Francesca Clayton added a goal for GB, again reducing the deficit, with just under 5 minutes left to play, to take the score to 10-7.
A deflection allowed Triantafyllia Monoliodaki to put the Greeks four goals clear and after a tactical time out with 4 minutes remaining, Tsoukala added her fourth of the game.
Alkisti Avramidou scored a penalty to put the Greeks clear to ultimately take the match 13-7.
Rosie Morris, Captain of the British Gas GBR Water Polo Team said: “We’re all disappointed, not so much that we lost but with our performance.
“I think we really underperformed in today’s game, we made too many mistakes in defence that we know we shouldn’t be doing. We know what we need to work on for the next game.
“We scored a lot of goals and that is something we have improved on since Paul Metz came in as coach so that is positive.
“We got our game right in the first half, we were equal with them at half time but we need to sort out our second half and the mistakes.”
Paul Metz, Interim Head Coach for the team said: “It is a pity we couldn’t adjust well to the different plan the opposition made.
“We started well but the Greek team found solutions for our players and we couldn’t adjust.
“Next match we will make a plan to win as always, looking at each individual to find out the three or four things we can improve.”
The Brits will face Olympic gold medallists USA in their next game on Thursday 25th July.
Goal scorers:
Gibson– 2
Gibson-Byrne -2
Winstanley-Smith -1
Clayton – 1
Wilcox - 1