The Aussies remained undefeated at the Oceania Zonals, much to the satisfaction of their coach, Brad Dubberley, who will always be "The Kid" to many of us in the sport. Now on the other side of the bench as the Australian Head Coach, The Kid is making his mark once again, as he did as a dominant 3.5 player back in the day.

After having taken care of business against the speedy Japanese by a score of 47-44 in the opening match at the Oceania Zonals, they dispatched arch-rivals New Zealand 41-38 on Day Two. Day 3 was all about Team Canada, and the team from Oz went in confidently, despite their previous setbacks against Canada at the 2006 World Championships, the 2006 Canada Cup, and the 2004 Paralympic Games.

At half time, Australia led Canada by a score of 22-20 in a game that saw both teams go after one another at full strength and in fine form. Some controversies and protests surrounded the game, and several others at this tournament, involving referee calls, but I'll allow Marco to comment on those game situations.

TEAM 1. 2. 3. 4.
AUS. 13 22 34 41
CAN. 10 20 29 36

Heading in to the fourth and final quarter, the Australians were leading 34-29 following a controversial last goal on the buzzer at the end of the third. The final score ended with the same 5-goal margin for the Aussies, and saw them come away with a 41-36 victory over the Canadians.

The Kiwis rested 3.0 Dan Buckingham, 2.0 Gerry Tinker, and 1.0 Jai Waite in their game against Korea, with the line of 2.5 Curtis Palmer, 1.5 Dave Klinkhamer, 2.0Steve Hannan and 2.0 Tim Johnson getting most of the court time. The final score against the developing Korean team saw the Kiwis more than double the Koreans 46-21.

Interestingly enough, there were no protests at the 2005 Zonals at all, so this year's volume of protests seems to be an anomaly, but with zonal Paralympic qualification on the line, as well as their world rankings for use at the Games, more is at stake here than in 2005.

As for the Canada - China game... we've got the result posted accurately on the CWSA web site. :)

For your continued reading, check out this article from today's edition of the
Daily Telgraph - "Like a Batt out of Hell"

Here is a look at the pool games after all matches were played:

     ..AUS..  ..CAN..  ..CHN..  ..JAP..  ..KOR..  ..NZL..  ..RSA..  W  L  +/-
AUS           V 41-36  V 87-36  V 47-44  V 99-12  V 41-38  V 62-33  6  0  +178
CAN  D 36-41           V 58-14  V 35-34  V 47-10  D 36-40  V 43-21  4  2  + 95
CHN  D 36-87  D 14-58           D 30-71  V 38-35  D 18-46  D 43-51  1  5  -169
JAP  D 44-47  D 34-35  V 71-30           V 71- 9  D 26-35  V 55-23  3  3  +122
KOR  D 12-99  D 10-47  D 35-38  D  9-71           D 21-46  D 28-59  0  6  -245
NZL  D 38-41  V 40-36  V 46-18  V 35-26  V 46-21           V 52-22  5  1  + 93
RSA  D 33-62  D 21-43  V 51-43  D 23-55  V 59-28  D 22-52           2  4  - 74

This creates the following matches for tomorrow's games:

Game 22 - 1st vs. 4th - Australia vs. Japan (AUS won by 3 in the pool game)
Game 23 - 2nd vs. 3rd - New Zealand vs. Canada (NZL won by 5 in the pool)
Game 24 - 6th vs. 7th - China vs. Korea (CHN won by 3 in the pool for their 1st international win)