Saturday's Match of the Week was pivotal for Vipers Kristiansand and Metz Handball as both teams are fighting hard to finish in second place in group B, which secures a direct place in the DELO EHF Champions League quarter-finals.
Vipers had won sixth straight matches in the competition before this encounter, but Metz celebrated a 31:25 away victory that ended the Norwegian side's run.
GROUP B
MOTW: Vipers Kristiansand (NOR) vs Metz Handball (FRA) 25:31 (13:17)
- spurred by Louise Burgaard's goals, Metz took an impressive 6:0 lead in the 9th minute
- after Markéta Jerábková finally scored Vipers' first goal, the title-holders improved a lot and cut the deficit to 7:6. However, Metz then used a 5:1 run to pull clear and lead by four goals at half-time
- Evelina Eriksson, who replaced Katrine Lunde in Vipers' goal after the break, kept her team in the game, boasting a 41 per cent save rate
- despite her heroics, the French team never gave up their lead after the break and cruised to victory
- Metz, who also defeated Vipers in the reverse fixture (23:18), are now level on 16 points with the Norwegian team, but have a game in hand
Back court plays key role
Three back court players made the biggest contribution to Metz's victory, as right back Louise Burgaard, centre back Meline Nocandy and left back Tamara Horacek scored six goals each. Overall, they combined for more than a half of their team's goals (18 of 31).
For Vipers, line player Ana Debelic converted all of her seven shots, yet the team's back court did not work as well. In particular, Nora Mørk scored just three goals from seven attempts. If Mørk had been in better form, the result might have been different.
I think we were aggressive in defence. I’m a Scandinavian player and I know how tough it is to play against Norwegian teams. In the French league we are not as used to facing aggressive teams like Vipers. Despite our good start, we knew they would come back and make a game of it, and we had to play good for the whole game to secure the win.
