Netherlands winner of Group 3

Like Russia, France and Serbia before them, now the Netherlands are confirmed as winner of their qualification group on the way to the Women’s EHF EURO 2016 in Sweden.

In the opener of the final round on Saturday afternoon, the Dutch side came out on top against Austria to finish on top of Group 3.

Austria’s last hope of finishing the qualification as best third ranked team came to its end at the break.

Group 3:

Netherlands vs. Austria 35:22 (18:11)

19 minutes were played and the score was 10:9 in favour of the hosts, when the Austrian side still hoped for an away win against the silver medallists of the 2015 World Championship, but then backed by a strong defence and the goals of their top scorer Lois Abbingh (nine goals in total), the Netherlands forged ahead easily.

Allowing the Austrians only to score two more goals, while netting eight at the same time; the match had been already decided by the half-time whistle (18:11).

Only five minutes later, the gap was in double-figures for the first time at 23:13, the biggest gap was 14 goals when the scoreboard read 30:16.

The Austrian resistance had been broken and the Netherlands could celebrate their fifth victory in their sixth qualification match.

As Dutch coach Henk Groner's side won the direct duel against runners-up Spain on aggregate goals, they are confirmed the winner of this group ahead of Spain's match against Bulgaria.



Like Sonja Frey, Kathrin Engel netted six times for Austria to complete her season total of 39 goals in this competition.