After a week of poolside battle-cries and rivalries and name-calling between the Aussies and the US, there could be only one natural conclusion. Get both countries in the pool and give them a night in which they could legally scrape, push, drag, shove, belt, gouge, drown and yell at one another. Throw a ball in and call it sport.

Over 18,000 showed up at the Aquatic Centre on Saturday night to witness the Olympics' inaugural women's water polo final. Even if the game features in every Olympics for the rest of the millennium, there will never be a better finish.

With just over one second left, it was all square at 3-3, the Aussie fans were screaming their lungs out and the home team were awarded a free after one of the American women was whistled for coming too close to her opponent. Given that water polo is a sport that basically gives you the right to mug someone, it seemed an absurdly soft call. The Americans went to regroup, the ball went to Yvette Higgins and, from about eight metres out, she went for glory.

It was a humdinger of a shot, a net-trembler. The John Motson of the water polo world, whoever he is, most probably declared it "a cracka".

"I was just calling for Simone, my teammate to give me the ball while they weren't ready and I knew there was just a second left so I let fly," recalled Higgins. "Then everybody was jumping up and down in the water and going crazy."

On both sides. While the Australians danced jigs on the tiles, the Americans were beside themselves with rage, having felt that Higgins should not have been allowed to shoot directly from the free, that it was, in effect, an indirect free. "We didn't think the ball was live, we thought that she had to pass it so we pressed up on all the other players," said Brenda Villa of the US. "If we had known she was live, there was no way we would have let her have so much room on the shot."

For the Americans, it was Munich revisited, with scenes similar to the famous basketball final of that year, when their men's team were controversially defeated by a last-second shot. "Call in Hank Iba," yelled one press hound, referring to the luckless coach of that basketball team.

But Guy Baker, the water polo coach, was not about to make an international issue over Higgins' late, late fling for gold.

"I just had a gut reaction. I thought she had to pass, but it seems she was outside the seven-metre area and could shoot directly. You know, it was great composure by the Australians in those last 13 seconds and it was a really great final, very hard fought. What happened in the last seconds is just one element of a fine game."

The home team could scarcely believe what they were experiencing. Once the Games were awarded to Sydney in 1993, they began intensifying a decade-long movement for the inclusion of their sport. Letters, meetings, public appearances, once even showing up at the airport in their swim gear to greet IOC members.

"This campaign was going on for a long time, way before I even started playing water polo," said goalkeeper Liz Weekes. "There were times when it seemed as if we were banging our heads against the wall, but we had a dream and nothing was going to stand in our way."

It was appropriate that women's water polo should make its debut in a country obsessed with anything to do with the pool. And it is hard to know why the sport was excluded for so long. It is a gruelling, painstaking game. The very concept - treading water, fighting off players and trying to catch and pass a ball with one free hand - is exhausting in itself.

The final, tight and low-scoring and wonderfully noisy throughout, was a perfect showcase for the women's game. And as disconsolate as the Americans were - goalkeeper Bernice Orwig, who saw the final shot slip through her fingers, was actually unable to string a sentence together at the press conference - they were delighted at having been part of an historic night. Maureen O'Toole, some 19 years older than the youngest US player, came out of retirement once water polo was approved for the Olympics and bows out of the game with a silver medal.

"Now that we didn't win gold, I might have to come back in four years. But no, I don't plan to play anymore and being here was great. Coming out of retirement was super hard, but I wouldn't change it for anything - except for this last game." After a week that saw the US usurp the home nation's claims to poolside supremacy, this was a sweet ending as the focus of the Games shifts across to the track.