With coach Nick Buller at the helm, the team enjoyed milestone victories over South Africa and Kazakhstan in their fourth-ever World Aquatics Championship appearance.

The Brits earned their spot for Doha as a result of solid play and a bit of good luck at the Europeans in the Netherlands just last month.  A pivotal moment was the fierce battle they were expecting with Israel in Eindhoven.  However the top Israeli scorer was excluded in the previous match and she was banned from play against the British team.

The evenly matched battle between the Brits and Israel was tied at 9 at the end of regulation time. Team GB won in a penalty shootout, 14-13. In the next match they lost to the Dutch women who were both the reigning World Champions and soon to become the 2024 European Champions. The British players delivered an 11-9 victory over Croatia to qualify for the last available spot for Doha. The GB women became one of the top three teams outside of the quartet of teams that had already qualified for the World Championships in Doha. 

The women of Team GB knew the history of those who stood on the pool decks at the World Champs well before their arrival in Doha. Britain’s women had played in three previous World Championships; coincidentally all in Spain, but they had never previously achieved a victory at the world championships.  

None of the British women had played at a previous world championship as Team GB last competed at the 2013 World Championships. But all 13 athletes in Doha were part of the team that placed seventh at the January European Championships in Eindhoven. Head coach Buller was joined on the British bench by assistant Peggy Etiebet who brings Worlds experience to the British team as she was a member of the GB squad that competed in 2013. Additionally, Rose Younger, the team manager, played for GB at the 1986 inaugural of the FINA World Championships.

The team from GB finished 9th out of 9 teams competing at the inaugural world championships held in Madrid in 1986.  Seventeen years later the British women played in the 2003 Barcelona World Championships to a disappointing 16th place. Their closest match in World Championship competition was a 5-6 loss to Venezuela on July 19, 2023 at the Piscines Bernat Picornell, the same venue which hosted the 1992 Olympic Games.

Great Britain’s third competition on the Iberian peninsula was at the 2013 World Championships, returning to Barcelona ten years after the previous championships. Eleven years ago in their third appearance at the World Championship, the British women lost each of their matches to Canada, Greece, Hungary and the USA. They would earn a 13th-place finish in the 1- team tournament.

In Doha the British campaign at these 2024 World Aquatics Championships began with a 10-22 loss to the Italians in their first match. Two days later the team from Canada scored 20 goals against the 5 delivered by the British women. Following two consecutive losses the team’s goal of a top-three finish in their group was in jeopardy if they failed to beat their next opponent, South Africa.

In a shining moment, the team’s 14-5 vanquish of South Africa marked their first-ever victory in World Championship history. Three goals from Toula Falvey, two apiece for team captain Kathy Rogers, Katie Brown and Lily Turner and goals from Katy Cutler, Annie Clapperton, Lotte van Wingerden, Brooke Tafazolli and Amelia Peters combined for all-round performance. Player-of-the-match Rogers said: “We knew the first two games would be really challenging but this was the game we focused on. To come out here and put together a strong team feels fantastic. It’s been the craziest six months. From European qualification where we were the lowest-ranked team going in to be here at the World Champs, it’s just been a wild ride.”

It was doubly sweet as their victory also guaranteed a place in the top 12 teams – one position higher than the team managed in Barcelona more than a decade ago. 

In the women's crossover match Australia, one of five nations that had competed at each of the 17 world championships, would stop the GB winning streak at one. The team from down under soundly defeated Great Britain by a 20-8 margin.  

Intent on being challenged by the world’s best teams, an improved Great Britain squad was defeated 15-10 by China in the classification stage for the 9-12th place. The Asian Games champions finished the tournament in 10th place. GB’s Lily Turner found the net 4 times in the loss.

In their final match Great Britain’s women confirmed an eleventh place finish at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha with a narrow 8-6 victory against Kazakhstan in the 11-12 place classification match.  Goalkeeper Sophie Jackson stopped 16 shots and Brooke Tafazolli scored four goals in GB’s second victory in the World Championship tournament.

Britain’s 5 victories at the European Championships and two wins at the World Championships were significant achievements for the team that was eager to prove they are focused on a brighter future.

World Aquatics followed the British women and captured some post-game responses to our interviews throughout the tournament:

They Said | Lily Turner following the loss to the People's Republic of China:

"I'm happy that we worked really hard today as a team. We came into this game knowing that we could push them, and we really wanted to get a good result today going into the next game. 

"We just talked about being controlled and being patient in our offense.  A win is always the objective, I think their (China’s) six-on-five was great today. They have good shooters, and we should have done a better job of closing out.

I" think just being patient and working together. We have never been to a world championship before, so we're all just loving the experience. 

"I think we're gonna try and take the physicality and intensity and also the focus we had in that game to the next game and really take it to Kazakhstan. 

"I think we would love to go to the next Europeans and qualify for Worlds again. That'd be great for our programme." 

They Said | Annie Clapperton scored two goals in the match against Kazakhstan:

"We are proud to have finished in 11th place. We came here to be in top 12 and we did achieve that."

They Said | Brooke Tafazolli scored four goals in the win over Kazakhstan

"Oh, this tournament has been so good. From start to finish, the organization's been really good. We came into this hoping to come in the top 12. We wanted to win one game in our group and then reach the ninth to 12th playoffs. We've actually exceeded so we're really really proud. We learned a lot from this and we are now pointing in the right direction. This gives hope for the future.

"We went into the European qualifiers, ranked last, and then we came top of our group, and then we won our group at Europeans, finished seventh and qualified to come to Doha. So our future really, it's optimistic. We have done all this with little funding and little support.

"Lots of us have full time jobs and we are just taking time off to train and to play water polo. For the younger generation, hopefully they can look up to us. And then hope, there's hope for them in the future."

They Said | Goalkeeper Sophie Jackson; 16 saves in the victory over Kazakhstan

"We came into this game with a very positive head space. I think they came into it with a lot more physicality than we were expecting and we need to adjust to that. When we went up early in the first quarter, I think we got a bit too comfortable. We were rushing our attacks and we were not being careful But we would normally be so I think that's why it became a much closer game than we had hoped but then. At the end of the third quarter, we took a deep breath and we were like this is our game. We just need to go out there and take it and we were calm and we did that. 

"It's been a tough one for me as a goalkeeper because obviously, we're playing these amazing teams. They have so much funding and so many training advantages.  We don't have all of those facilities that they have.

"We've had some big losses which has been quite mentally taxing for me and I know for a lot of the girls as well. I think that we held on really strongly as a team. We didn't let those big losses deter our mentality.  We kept fighting and we knew that the game against South Africa was a huge one for us. We came into that game full force and this one as well.

"I have learned to trust in myself, in our systems and in my team."

They Said | Coach Nick Buller

"I am very pleased with our results.  Our program has not had any funding for a long time. We competed at the European championships and it was a really big surprise coming in seventh. We qualified for Doha and we played better than last time when we came in 13th with a fully funded programme Today we have become 11th in the World Championships."

Great Britain’s water polo squad for the 2024 Women’s World Water Polo Championships in Doha, Qatar:

• Katie Brown, City of Liverpool
• Annie Clapperton (VC), LUC Metropole Waterpolo
• Katy Cutler, Bogliasco 1951
• Toula Falvey, Club Natacio Sant Feliu
• Vicki Hawkins, Sandwell, Cheltenham, City of Coventry
• Sophie Jackson, City of Manchester
• Niamh Moloney, Otter/Dunfermline WPC
• Amelia Peters, City of Sheffield
• Alex Robinson, Rotherham Metro
• Kathy Rogers (C), CN Catalunya
• Brooke Tafazolli, City of Manchester
• Lily Turner, Ethnikos Piraeus