Sweden beat their Oceania opponents Australia by 14 goals in each half, running out 44:16 winners as they recorded their second Group B win in two days following an opening day victory against Korea yesterday.

GROUP B
Australia vs Sweden 16:44 (6:20)

One look at the numbers before this match and it was clear that Australia would have to work hard to get anything from this clash and that proved to be the case early on as Sweden led by four (5:1) after eight minutes, extending it to 11 (25th minute) and then 14 (20:6) at the break.

By the time there was just over a quarter of the match remaining the Scandinavians had a 22-goal lead (30:8 – 43rd minute) and the result was clear. But Australia caused Sweden problems straight after, going on a 6:3 run which caused consternation from coach Jerry Hallback on the Sweden bench and misplaced passes on the court.

With just an average age of 18.93 years, the Australian squad are the youngest one at the 2019 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship in Spain, plus, they are making history too as the first-ever Aussie team to compete at this age range on the global scale.

On the other hand, Sweden, with 20 appearances at the championship – and three gold medals – and an average age of 20 years old had experience and history on their side, plus superior physicality with an average weight of 92.9kg, compared to a 78.9kg from the Australian side.

However, despite the numbers before the match against them, the Australians played with heart, fight and positive energy and at moments throughout this one-sided affair they displayed poise and technical ability bringing about raw emotion from their vocal families and friends inside the As Travesas Sports Hall – as well as coach Ricki Lyngsoe, who had a smile as wide as the Sydney Harbour Bridge when his team, up an extra man thanks to a Swedish two-minute suspension, perfectly-executed a series of passes to sink home.

Unfortunately, 19 technical faults in attack tells its own story for the Oceanic side and even Sweden’s David Sandberg was surprised when his hopeful jump block from an Australian goalkeeping restart resulted in the ball ricocheting off of his back and into the goal (23:7) as he side ended with 44 goals from 55 shots – an 80% conversion rate thanks to strikes from all 13 court players.
 
In the end Samuel Lindberg top-scored for Sweden with seven goals while Jake Ljungberg and Pavle Proki grabbed five each for Australia.

"We are an emerging nation so for us it is a reward to be here," said Australia's Jake Ljungberg to spainhandball19.com. "We are enjoying playing against some of the best teams in the world, such as Sweden today or France on Friday and we will learn much against opponents of this calibre."

Following a rest day tomorrow for Group B, Hallback’s team will face a much tougher test against Egypt on Friday morning (10:00) with Australia taking on France in the early afternoon (14:00).

Best Player of the Match: Gzim Salihi (SWE)