SINGAPORE — They were outplayed, outfought, and eventually comprehensively defeated 12-4 in Tuesday night’s friendly match against the Under-18 team of Slovakian club side Kupele Piestany (KVP).

Despite the one-sided scoreline, Singapore’s Under-23 men’s team had done enough during the game at the Toa Payoh Swimming Complex to impress KVP U-18 assistant coach Michal Berlansky, who told TODAY that his opponents had demonstrated great potential.

As it turned out, Berlansky’s confidence in the Republic’s youth water polo players was not misplaced. In a rematch the next day, the hosts put on a show of grit and determination to edge the closely-fought tie 11-10.

The victory, while surprising, was a welcome one for the Singapore squad, as it provided a fresh injection of confidence for the players — many of whom only joined the national Under-23 team just last year.

But Berlansky, whose team travelled here as part of the Singapore Swimming Association’s (SSA’s) water polo sparring programme, believes such initiatives — which aim to expose the national and age-group teams to competitive action throughout the year — are important as they greatly help in the development of Singapore’s youth players.

“The most important thing for the (Singapore) youth team now is to continue having some kind of exchange with the higher level teams,” said Berlansky. “Especially against teams from Europe such as Spain, Croatia and Montenegro, because they are some of the strongest in the world. When you have this kind of competitive experience, it’s a certainty that you can grow.

“From what I’ve observed, the Singapore players are fast, with decent technique and play a well-rounded game. I think they still need to be more strategic and tactically aware during matches but, overall, I think they are doing very well and have good potential to grow.”

SSA assistant secretary-general (water polo) Jerome Lau added that for most of the current youth players, it would take at least two years of training in the national team programme before they would be able to break into the senior squad.

But he is confident this new generation of players will be able to maintain Singapore’s proud reputation as the undisputed kings of water polo in South-east Asia (SEA). The national men’s team have won 26 consecutive gold medals at the SEA Games, having come up tops at every edition of the Games since the sport was introduced in 1965.

“They definitely have shown the qualities to succeed (at the senior level),” said Lau. “But many of them only joined last year, and when you join the national team, you typically need about two years to go through the training programme before you see results. It’s still too early for many of them from this particular group. So sparring matches like this (against KVP) are used like a pit stop, to check on the players’ progress and to see if our training is effective.”