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The Australian Steelers have missed the Canada Cup semi-finals and will return home this week with plenty to contemplate before the upcoming 2022 Wheelchair Rugby World Championships.
Regarded as the key test-event in a Paralympic or World Championship year, the 2022 edition of the biennial tournament in Vancouver saw the Steelers finish fifth and receive a timely wake-up call as the world’s leading teams went to a new level.
The Steelers have featured in the gold medal match at every World Championships since 2010, taking victory in 2014, are now painfully aware of what they need to improve to rediscover their best form ahead their first match on October 10 in Vejle, Denmark.
With two losses and a win to open their Canada Cup campaign, the equation was simple for the Steelers on Sunday – two big wins – with any other result making it tough to progress.
That equation became complicated when they suffered their largest ever loss against Japan (58-42), a contest that saw the Steelers implode in the fourth quarter by conceding 11 turnovers. The reigning world champions went on a rampage in the final eight minutes, outscoring the Steelers 16-5, before the final siren mercifully sounded.
It left the Steelers needing a six-goal victory against Denmark, but it wasn’t to be.
Instead, the two evenly matched sides slugged it out in a bitter double-overtime thriller before the Steelers prevailed 65-64.
It meant the Australians finished fifth overall on goal difference in the six-team draw, ahead of France.
“It’s been a tough week in so many ways but it was nice to finish off with a win,” Australian head coach Brad Dubberley said.
“I’m really proud of the team this afternoon. We dug ourselves a big hole, we were down by five goals at one stage. To work our way back and use our bench was really good, also to come back in double-overtime was really good too. I’m very proud of the effort.”
Dubberley said that while fifth place was not the result he was hoping for, he saw enough positive signs in Canada to give him confidence for a strong World Championship campaign.
He did concede that his team showed significant rust, which was to be expected at their first international tournament since the Tokyo Paralympic Games last August, but he remained optimistic that their five high quality matches in Vancouver have set the Steelers on a promising path towards to success in Denmark.
The anticipated return of the outstanding and highly experienced Chris Bond, who missed the Canada Cup for family reasons, will provide another key boost.
“Obviously there is a lot of improvement and there are things to sort out moving forward between now and Worlds,” he said.
“We really have to tidy up some of our defence. [The opposition] got through our backcourt too easy but we kept making some silly errors – just game management stuff like not using our time-outs when we needed them, not spreading the court enough.
“We’re trying to build. We’re trying to build for bigger and better things but unfortunately it’s not going to happen instantly.”
Japan and Canada qualified for the gold medal on Monday at Richmond Oval while Great Britain and Denmark will fight it out for bronze.
By: Paralympics Australia
Posted: 5 June 2022
