Guillaume Gille’s team are making themselves hard to ignore at Egypt 2021, as they made it two wins out of two to move into the main round with a game to spare.

Their taking apart of Austria by seven goals (35:28) tonight put their opponents on the brink of exiting the championship, depending on the result of the second Group E match this evening between Norway and Switzerland.

GROUP E
Austria vs France 28:35 (13:17)

Austria coach Alex Pajovic made three changes to his squad of 16 who lost their opening encounter against Switzerland, bringing in goalkeeper Florian Kaiper, right wing Julian Ranftl and left back Christoph Neuhold, while French coach Guillaume Gille made just one change, swapping left backs, with 31-year-old Jean Jacques Acquevillo coming in for Timothy N’Guessan, rested as a precaution due to a slight thigh injury.

Gille shuffled his bench from their opening day victory against Norway with Nicolas Tournat starting on the line, Melvyn Richards in the middle and Vincent Gerard returning to goal, in place of the Wesley Pardin, who impressed with 18 saves against the Norwegian where he took the best player award.

And it was to prove to be another day for the French goalkeepers, with Gerard himself taking the award this evening, ending with 17 saves, more than three times the total of the two Austrian goalkeepers.

But it was not just the Austrian defence that was off form, their attack was barely more than 50 percent effective, sluggish in places and their cause was not helped when right back Boris Zivkovic hobbled off in the 25th minute after appearing to stub his toe when shooting.

The French were pumped for this. A big ‘ooooh’ coming from the bench when Dika Mem put his side 13:9 ahead with a strike which smashed into the goal (20th minute). By this time, Gerard had already scored once, into an open goal as Pajovic tried to get his attack to function with the extra attacker. Further exclamations came from the French bench when Gerard made his eighth save in the 22nd minute, almost as if his side had seen off the Austrian threat for good.

At half-time, Gerard already had 11 saves, while Austria had two in total, and one look at the players rested by Gille in the first period warming up – Wesley Pardin, Kentin Mahe, Ludovic Fabregas (with a bandaged left wrist and thumb), Hugo Descat and Valentin Porte and Nedim Remili, who only played three minutes – shows just how much quality in depth France have for a three-week championship.

Porte, Descat, Fabregas and Remili all started the second period along with Gerard and Luka Karabatic, with Mahe then coming into attack for Karabatic early on and by the 41st minute and after another Gerard goal, France were home and dry, eight goals up (26:18) and cruising, with everyone inside the Dr Hassan Moustafa Sports Hall enjoying the magic of Mahe and Remili’s assists.

hummel Player of the Match: Vincent Gerard, France