Viborg's terrible last test 

Danish Women’s CL team, Viborg HK, had a terrible last test before travelling to Vienna to play a derby match of Group 2 against Hypo Niederösterreich on Sunday.

Only four days before the away match against the Austrian champions, Viborg lost a point in the Danish league (32-32 away draw) against Aalborg DH. The opponents were last in the league before the match.

Recently, Viborg suffered their first defeat in the domestic league this season when they lost 30-28 at home against Slagelse DT. On Wednesday evening Tomas Ryde’s ladies had to record another disappointing result with the draw against Aalborg, 23 points behind Viborg on the league table.

Close match

This draw may not have been such a surprising result before the start of the season. Last year Aalborg reached the quarterfinals in the Champions League, but this season was a failure for the North Jutland club. First they failed to qualify for the CL group phase and then they reached a series of poor results in the Danish league. Norwegian head coach, Leif Gautestad, was fired shortly after New Year.

In front of 3,925 spectators in the Gigantium Arena of Aalborg, however, the Aalborg girls managed to show some of their old virtues this Wednesday evening. As Viborg performed considerably below their usual standards, the match was surprisingly equal most of the time. At half time the score was 16-16, and even though Viborg managed to take a 29-26 lead with less than 10 minutes left, the home team took one point with an impressive finish.

Viborg still in the lead

However, the confidence before the Hypo match is probably the only thing that was damaged for Viborg. The green girls are still leading the Danish league with 5 points ahead the second ranked team, Ikast/Bording, with only four matches to go.

Aalborg, on the other hand, moved away from the bottom of the table with a valuable point in their relegation struggle. In addition, they gained some badly needed confidence as well.

Once again German international Grit Jurack was Viborg’s best player with 7 goals, while Danish international Louise Mortensen scored 9 for Aalborg.