Austria suffer heavy defeat against hosts France

Austria's men had to digest a 0:6 defeat on Friday evening despite being evenly matched opponents. In a game characterised by high tempo and a direct drive towards goal from the outset, Austria established themselves in the offensive zone for the first time in the 6th minute.

Defenceman Bernd Wolf's stick broke as he attempted a shot. Shortly afterwards, France created several chances, with David Madlener on hand in goal. However, the Austrian netminder was powerless for the French 1:0 while Michael Kernberger was serving a penalty.

In the 16th minute, Vinzenz Rohrer, who was highly noticeable throughout the game and was named Best Player, produced a solo effort. But instead of the equaliser, France made it 2:0 shortly before the break. An Austrian power play a few minutes into the middle period went unused.

In the 30th minute, Austria finally had a major chance to pull one back, but the angle was ultimately too tight for Rohrer's shot. Seconds later, a lapse in concentration in front of their own goal led to France making it 3:0. Shortly afterwards, David Madlener denied France a 3:1 power-play situation with his pad to prevent 4:0, but it came in the 34th minute following a penalty against Manuel Ganahl.

15 seconds after the start of the final period, France caught Austria cold to make it 5:0. Once again, the goal was preceded by a misplaced pass in their own defensive zone, as was the case for 6:0 in the 43th minute. Despite the sizeable deficit, Roger Bader's team showed heart and continued to battle relentlessly. Paul Huber and Vinzenz Rohrer each went through on goal alone but could not get the puck into the French net. Lucas Thaler was also unfortunate to hit the crossbar.

Head Coach Roger Bader:"It is difficult to accept this result because it does not reflect our performance in the game. We were good to very good for the first 30 minutes and still found ourselves 0:3 behind. I am unhappy with the second 30 minutes, especially with the gifts we gave them, particularly at the start of the final period. At the beginning, we implemented much of what we had planned. Even in the final period, when we did not play well, we created scoring chances. We should have scored four or five goals today. We also had ten more shots on goal than our opponents. But the turnovers we had in defence, which cost us at least three goals, are extremely frustrating."

Vinzenz Rohrer, Best Player:"It was mainly down to us. There is not much you can say about a 6:0 result. Fundamentally, though, we can say that we had good phases in the game and followed our game plan. But we did not convert our chances up front and were too prone to mistakes at the back. Then it quickly becomes 6:0. We need to take our chances tomorrow. We had plenty today, and tomorrow we need to play our best game and forget today."

Felix Maxa:"We showed some good signs, but individual errors in the defensive zone put us behind very quickly. We also simply failed to convert our own scoring chances to create a more positive feeling. Unfortunately, we spent a lot of time chasing the game. Against Norway, we have to start scoring goals. We have to try to start the game faster. We have to try to score the first goal and take away the fact that we need to find more energy for the game, that we need to create more positive feelings for the game, so that we can create more scoring chances and score more goals."

Four Nations Tournament

09 – 10 February 2024, Épinal (FRA)

Semi-final:

France vs. Austria 6:0 (2:0,2:0,2:0)
Fri, 09 February 2024, 20:00
France goalscorers:Tomas Simonsen (15th/PP1), Tim Bozon (19th), Aurélien Dair (31th, 41th), Charles Bertrand (34th/PP1), Kévin Bozon (43th)

Third-place game:

Austria vs. Norway
Sat, 10 February 2024, 16:00, live on ORF SPORT +