Day 9, Group B – Jug Adriatic Osiguranje Dubrovnik (CRO) v Genesys-OSC Budapest (HUN) 13-8
Vjeko Kobescak is the type of coach who never fakes anything, always goes for straightforward comments in every moment – so when he said before this game that “I have no words to describe our performances in recent weeks”, he really meant that Jug was in deep crisis. However, sport history says that Croatians who really want to prove themselves could be extremely dangerous rivals. And OSC, which arrived at Dubrovnik to repeat Spandau’s feat of beating Jug in their own pool, could experience that first hand in the famous Gruz complex.
Though OSC took the lead after 57 seconds, Jug stepped up from the beginning, responded quickly, then, at 2-2, with a fine double by Franko Lazic in 85 seconds they jumped to a 4-2 lead and held on for 5-3 in the first period. OSC pulled one back from a penalty, then came a decisive phase when Jug scored three connecting goals to go 8-4 up and shut out the Hungarians for the rest of the period. OSC’s scoreless run came to an end after more than nine minutes, still, they could score only once in this period again, while Jug could add two a bit later to make it 10-5 before the last quarter.
Limiting the Magyars to two goals in the middle two periods did enough damage – OSC were unable to penetrate the Croats’ defence. Despite they could force a relatively balanced closing eight minutes, they didn’t seem to have any chance for a positive result. This may have ended their quest – winning a single game in 9 rounds is not something potential F8 participants could afford, indeed they have been now dropped to the 7th place in the group, while Jug rebuilt a calming 6-point gap ahead of the chasers.
How they saw it
Vjekoslav Kobescak, coach, Jug
“It was a really good game from our side, especially in defence. We gave everything we had, this was the best performance after a long-long time. After losing to Spandau, beating OSC is great.”
Daniel Varga, coach, OSC
“Congrats for Jug, they were the better team tonight. They set the pace from the very beginning and the other key factor was the man-down. These two are linked – we were down both in speed and in thinking. I’m disappointed as we wanted to win tonight, but we have to admit that there was a big difference between the teams in every aspect in this match.”
