GB lost a narrow opening match last night against the Portuguese 23-22 and go into tonight’s game with no new injury concerns, although right-back Marie Gerbron has returned to her club in France.
Switzerland meanwhile will savour an extra challenge following their relatively easy 32-26 victory over the Italians yesterday afternoon but are also without a player, following left-back Nicole Dinkel’s return to her club in Germany.
Danish-based pivot Arienne Geissman, who lives with GB captain Lynn McCafferty and Holly Lam-Moores (pictured) in Aarhus and who works with GB Head Coach Jesper Holmris, will be looking to get one over on her friends, whilst Holmris (who spent time as a player in Switzerland) will be aiming to get one over on his old country of employment.
GB will have to be wary of Geissman as well as Karin Weigelt but will have expert knowledge as GB right-back Yvonne Leuthold, who played her club handball in Switzerland for nine years, and who has a joint Swiss and GB passport, will be familiar with the Swiss style of play and know many of the players in the strong Swiss squad.
Lynn McCaffery, GB Captain said ahead of the match: “We need to be mentally ready at the start of the match tonight, not fifteen minutes into the match and we have been working on this.
“We live with Arianne in Aarhus and she’s really fit and really strong, so we know a bit about them, but we’ve really been training hard on our offensive defence all week.
“Handball-wise we’re ready to play our offensive defence, the players know what they’ve got to do and we know how they score their goals after watching them yesterday – they score on lots of fast-breaks. We have to make sure that we don’t make stupid mistakes like we did last night.”
And Holmris added: “I was at the Switzerland v Italy game yesterday and, of course, I have some ideas about the match tactically, but mainly we are looking at our own game and performance.
“We have never played Switzerland before and the whole squad is looking forward to playing them, especially Yvonne - hopefully we can win and then the tournament is open again for us.
“We have to play with more speed tonight as that is our strength – we have to be faster and a bit more aggressive.
“The match is also important as their top scorer, Ariane Geissmann, lives with Holly and Lynn and is working with me, so that will be interesting – it won’t be nice to go back to her having lost. I’m not aware of any forfeits that the losers have to do, but maybe Holly has agreed something!”
Preview by Andrew McSteen
Pictures by Michele Davison
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