GB Women Secure Emphatic Victory Over Finland

A NINE-goal victory over Finland on Friday evening helped Great Britain women’s handball team put one foot into the group stages of the 2012 European Championship at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London.

Their 31-22 victory came despite some periods of slack play, but overall will give GB great hope of progressing to the next stages of the competition, as long as they can win on aggregate following Saturday’s second leg against the Finnish side.

“The result is very good,” said Head Coach Jesper Holmris. “Especially as we didn’t play as well as we know we can.

“We started well and were 6-1 up after about ten minutes, but then we let Finland dictate and started to play their game, and our defence wasn’t as good as it can be.

“But in the second half we corrected a lot of our errors, and our wingers especially played well and scored from 13 of their 15 shots at goal. And Kathryn Fudge (pictured) had a very good performance in attack for us and top-scored with six goals.

"The win was more comfortable than we expected, but we should aim to perform better in the second leg. We always think that our own performance is more important than the result, and for that reason we will be looking to correct some mistakes tomorrow.”

Great Britain take on Finland in the second leg at Crystal Palace tomorrow (June 4) starting at 7.30pm. The match is the finale of a day of action which sees four England Handball Cup finals take place throughout the day.