By Ian Chadband and Shayne Hope in Glasgow

Sam Short roared his delight, Mollie O’Callaghan counted her blessings and Alex Perkins shed her bridesmaid tag as Australia’s swimmers banked five more gold medals, turning the Tollcross pool into their own Commonwealth Games pleasure dome.

Short led home a dominant Australian medal clean sweep in the 400m freestyle final to launch the second night of the Glasgow swimming program in dazzling style ahead of poorly teammate Elijah Winnington and Ben Goedemans.

Olympic great O’Callaghan powered to 200m free victory ahead of teammate, 400m winner Lani Pallister, while Perkins annexed a long-awaited gold in the 50m butterfly.

Sam Williamson added a fourth gold medal for Australia, upstaging two-time Olympic champion Adam Ramsay-Peaty in the 100m breaststroke.

Flynn Southam, Kyle Chalmers, Shayna Jack and Meg Harris then cemented the Dolphins’ spectacular start, winning the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay as Australia backed up their six golds on the opening night.

Short, who’s shooting for an ambitious five gold medals in Glasgow, put on a mighty demonstration to destroy the field by more than four seconds in 3 minutes 41.25 seconds on Sunday morning (AEST) before offering a muscle man celebration.

“It doesn’t come around too often and you’ve got to make the most of it,” said the Queenslander of his extravagant flex.

“I saw my idols do that on the lane ropes so I was like, you know, why not?!”

Behind the 22-year-old Queenslander, there was a battle royal before Winnington (3:45.56) pipped teammate Ben Goedemans by a mere one-hundredth of a second – a formidable effort from the defending champion, who revealed afterwards he’d spent most of the previous night over a toilet bowl after a bout of food poisoning.

Short, who’s targeted four individual golds, was thrilled how the sweep mirrored the 400m freestyle 1-2-3 in Birmingham four years ago when Winnington led home Short, with Mack Horton nabbing the bronze.

“It just goes to show the rich history of Australian 400m swimming and it’s super special,” said Winnington.

The 400m final also featured the Games debut of 21-year-old Scottish swimmer Sean McCann, who finished last with a time of 3:53.57.

McCann and his twin sister were two years old when their older sister Madeleine, then aged three, went missing during a 2007 family holiday in Portugal, a disappearance that remains one of the world’s most high-profile missing person cases. Their parents were in the stands to watch.

O’Callaghan, who’d been part of the women’s 4x100m freestyle-winning quartet the night before, picked up her second gold, showing no vestiges of the stress fractures and bone bruising in her back that had cast a cloud over her participation.

“Dealing with the injury currently is not the best thing ever, but as an athlete you’ve got to find ways to adapt,” said the delighted Queenslander, who stopped the clock at 1:54.66 to Pallister’s 1:55.01, having always been in control.

“That’s something that I’ve done and my team has done and there’s been multiple circumstances over the years where I’ve just had to keep pushing on.

“That’s the best part about sport – you get hit with an unlucky stick and then you’ve got to pick yourself back up.

“Doing modified training and adapting to that and seeing how I go off that, it’s just incredible.”

It was an emotional evening for Perkins, two days before her 26th birthday, as the relay star who’s so often been the bridesmaid in international events swept to her first major individual triumph, taking the butterfly dash in 25.37 seconds.

“I don’t even think I really believed that I’d ever be at this level so I’m just taking it all in,” beamed the Queenslander, who’d previously won four major individual medals but never made the top of the podium.

Paralympic silver medallist Jack Ireland savoured another second-place finish in the 200m freestyle S14 final for Australia’s sixth medal in the para events in the pool.

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