RHF cruised to a six-goal victory against Montenegro in their penultimate Main Round Group I match, defeating their opponents 31:25 as they retain their hopes of making the last eight.
 
MAIN ROUND GROUP I
Montenegro vs RHF 25:31 (10:18)
 
RHF coach Liudmila Bodnieva had to make a last-minute adjustment to her plans with line player Anastasiia Illarionova suffering an injury to her ankle in the pre-match warm-up.
 
With just two line players in Spain – the other is 18-year-old player Kseniia Zakordonskaia, who made her competitive debut against Serbia two games ago – Bodnieva instead switched to centre back Karina Sabirova.
 
Despite the unexpected change, it made little difference to the RHF’s dominance on court as they faced a Montenegro side who have no possibility of qualification through to the quarter-finals.
 
A few seconds after nine minutes had passed, the opening exchanges looked grim for Bojana Popovic’s side as they were 1:7 down with RHF in total control. Popovic took a time out but it did little, with the RHF lead nearly stretching to 10 (7:16, 25 mins and 9:18, 30 mins).
 
Just before the break, Montenegro captain, Jovanka Radicevic, with both thighs taped, suddenly pulled up on her return to defence following a score from a fast-break, immediately indicating an injury to her hamstring, but, thankfully, she returned to court in the second half. She ended up as top-scorer in the match with seven goals and, again, had given her all, exhausted after the final buzzer.
 
“The first half, we didn’t fight enough, but we can take good things from the second half,” said Popovic after the match. We tried so much in the second half to find the right person on court but it took too long to find those.”
 
RHF finally extended their lead to 10 through Iuliia Managarova in the 43rd minute (24:14) and kept it up until the 53rd minute (29:19) when they took their foot off of the gas and Montenegro kept going, outscoring their opponents 6:2 in the final moments, to make the scoreline more respectable.
 
Montenegro’s frustration with the match was evident, not least with a few small clashes on court, most notably when Itana Grbic was given a two-minute for a coming together with Olga Shcherbak.
 
“We expected a tough match and we got it,” said Bodnieva. “We had a little bit of a problem in the second half when we made some rotation in our squad but we knew these two points were very important for us.”
 
hummel Player of the Match: Antonina Skorobogatchenko, RHF