How being one big family will help Australia’s women water polo team end 24-year drought

The Australian women’s water polo team has continued to come close without securing an elusive gold medal in 24-years, however a golden opportunity may present in Paris under new coach Bec Rippon.

Whether it’s shared bloodlines or a shared love of water polo, the Australian women’s team have always been a part of one big family.

More than just another sporting team, the Stingers’ squad heading to the Paris Olympics is an eclectic group that includes old-school veterans, bright-eyed rookies, teenagers and even a new mum.

As new coach Bec Rippon explained: “We embrace the individuality of all of the players because they are amazing for different reasons.

“They’ve all got different personalities and I’d hate to think that we would shut that down, so I really want to bring out the best in them by finding a common goal.”

Unsurprisingly, that goal has a golden hue.

It’s been 24 years since the Stingers won the Olympic gold medal and Rippon, who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics when she was a player, wants to help end the drought in Paris.

Can the Stingers break their grought? Picture: Getty Images

A change agent herself, Rippon’s sister and step sister also played for the Stingers, but she is the first female coach to lead an Australian water polo team at the Olympics and is tapping into the skills of others who have success.

Her two assistant coaches - Taryn Woods and Eddie Denis - both competed at the Sydney Olympics, with Woods a member of the pioneering women’s team that struck gold.

“I don’t think men can’t coach women or women can’t coach men but there is something different in understanding what it is that drives them,” Rippon said.

“When I was growing up, we were taught by our parents that if you want to do something, give it your absolute best and see what happens. That’s what I’m trying to do here.”

While the Stingers have an impressive historical record at the highest level, they have struggled to break through for medals in recent years.

Australia’s most recent medal at the Olympics was in 2012, with the Stingers losing to Russia in the quarter-finals at Tokyo in 2021. They also came up just short of the podium at the last two world championships.

Bronwen Knox from the Stingers in Tokyo. Picture:Adam Head

“We’ve been around and kind of knocking on the door but we’ve got to start turning those narrow losses into wins,” Rippon said.

“They’ve definitely got the potential and the ability too but turning up and being able to do it on the day is the most important thing.

“We know it’s going to be tough but I do think that it is a really even competition and I’m backing us to knock on the door and push it open.”

Rippon believes the key to turning things around is to embrace an all-out Australian attacking philosophy after some recent tweaks to the rules encouraged teams to go for it.

“We want to be a really fast, dynamic team. Really good in transition, physically fit, physically fast. That’s probably one of the biggest assets that we have so we’ve got to use it,” she said.

“But to do that, we’ve obviously got to have a really good understanding of the way we want to play tactically so that we can go down and do that. We want to be aggressive, we want to be relentless, we want to be fast and mobile, not a real static team.”

Originally published as How being one big family will help Australia’s women water polo team end 24-year drought