Sagosen & Co. stroll past Poland to grab their first points

However, Poland did not help themselves as they made too many technical errors and had a low attack efficiency of only 38 per cent compared to Norway's 54 per cent. Lijewski's squad will hope for a much better performance against Slovenia on Saturday.

GROUP D

Norway vs Poland 32:21 (15:10)

• Poland made nine technical errors and missed 21 shots which contributed to their poor performance in the opening match
• Norway's defensive play improved as the minutes went by and Poland's attack was left without an answer for Norway's physical approach
• Sander Sagosen was the match's top scorer with six goals to his name, although he missed another six
• Szymon Sicko was Poland's top scorer as the left back scored five goals from 11 shots
• goalkeeper Torbjørn Bergerud ended the match with nine saves overall and 37.5 per cent save efficiency, and was chosen as the Player of the Match, sponsored by Grundfos, by the fans

Norway's iron mentality and Bergerud's first-half performance crush Poland

Poland started the match in excellent fashion by taking an early three-goal lead (3:0) and leaving Norway goalless in the opening five minutes.

While the fifth-ranked team from the Men's EHF EURO 2022 might have started the match slow, but once they got their engines revving, they never looked back. The brilliant Torbjørn Bergerud displayed an excellent performance between the sticks and was instrumental in Norway's comeback with 6 saves and a 40 per cent of save efficiency in the opening 30 minutes, which left the Polish players struggling to score.

Photos © Axel Heimken & Uros Hocevar / kolektiff