Great Britain 16-42 France
By David Brenchley at Crystal Palace
Great Britain were put to the sword at Crystal Palace as France eased to a 42-16 victory in their European Championship 2010 Qualifier.
It took France just 23 seconds to open up an early lead through Siraba Dembele, who finished as one of six on her team to score five goals, and the former World Champions never looked back.
Olivier Krumbholz’s team raced onto a 15 minute 11-2 advantage before the home side found some rhythm. Jeanett Andersen and Britt Goodwin, who also grabbed five goals, scored in the first quarter of an hour and Goodwin rattled the crossbar but the visitors were just too strong throughout.
Dembele finished the first half with an impressive four goals as Great Britain’s pivot Lyn Byl was sin-binned twice, she later recieved her marching orders, but her side looked good during the first half hour.
Captain Lynn McCafferty (2), Zoe Van Der Weel (3), Louise Jukes and Kathryn Fudge all got onto the scoresheet but the hosts went into half time 18-9 down.
Britain’s opponents showed a clinical touch after the interval and came out firing. Camille Ayglon (2), Amelie Goudjo and Katty Piejos furthered their side’s advantage in the first five minutes of the second half before Kelsi Fairbrother pulled a goal back.
The crowd in South London tried their hardest to galvanise the GB team but Ayglon, Piejos, Claudine Mendy, Paule Baudouin and Alexandra Lacrabere all joined Dembele on five goals as France , who will compete in the World Championships in China later on this year, inflicted a second defeat of the campaign on Jesper Holmris’ team.
After the game Holmris acknowledged the gap in class shown: “We can’t compete against France at the moment especially when our best player Lyn Byl was sent off and we had even more problems in the defence.
“We were very pleased with our first half, 18-9 was a good result and [Sarah] Hargreaves made some good saves and had help from the defence but we ran out of ideas and energy in the second half,” he added.
Right back Louise Jukes also praised the visitors: “We set ourselves some goals which, unfortunately, we didn’t acheive but they were stronger and faster than we could have ever imagined, they were just awesome.”
Despite the loss, the former Denmark international praised the Crystal Palace crowd and looked forward to the next round of qualification matches.
“It was perfect, playing in London in front of our home crowd; they were cheering even though we were behind by quite a lot of goals.
“We know that France and Austria are ahead of us but Iceland is just the next level of nations so hopefully with another six months of training we can compete against them in April.”
Great Britain: Sarah Hargreaves, Holly Lam Moores, Lynn McCafferty, Louise Jukes, Britt Goodwin, Kelsi Fairbrother, Zoe Van Der Weel, Laura Innes, Kathryn Fudge, Lyn Byl, Amondine Webb, Nina Heglund, Jeanett Andersen
France: Linda Pradel, Amelie Goudjo, Nina Morel, Camille Ayglon, Allison Pineau, Claudine Mendy, Paule Baudouin, Amandine Leynaud, Stephanie Ntsama Akoa, Alice Leveque, Cleopatre Darleux, Siraba Dembele, Audrey Deroin, Raphaelle Tervel, Katty Piejos, Marion Limal, Alexandra Lacrabere
