The Croatian men’s handball team added a third Group C win over Australia at the World Cup in Handball in Sweden, following wins over Romania and Algeria. As expected, the amateur Aussies were no challenge for Slavko Goluza’s Croats who won the game 42-15 (HT: 19-9).
The first three relatively easy games are out of the way for Croatia. After Romania and Algeria, the Australians were the third team to go down against Croatia. The immense difference in quality between the two sides was apparent even before the match started – the Australians an amateur bunch who had to pay their own travel expenses coming to Sweden, while the Croats are perennial favorites to win any competition they appear in.
But now comes the hard part as Croatia goes up against the other two top teams in Group C, Serbia and Denmark.
A Croatian victory was never in doubt – the only question was by how great a difference would the Croats win. An 8-0 lead was in hand at just the 9 minute mark, and the Aussie’s first goal came at 9:30 in. Croatia fielded a mixed team and this saw Domagoj Duvnjak get his first minutes of play, coming on for the first time on 43 minutes.
Croatia’s top scorers against Australia were Zeljko Musa with 8 and Jerko Matulic and Denis Buntic with 7 goals.
Despite the 27 goal margin, Croatia did not beat the record set against the USA nearly a decade ago when the Yanks went down by 29 goals.
