Last year, the Belgian Cats pulled off a stunt by beating current world No. 3 Australia at the Olympics. It was within the bounds of expectation that it would be tougher in the quarter-finals on Thursday.

World Cup hosts Australia and Belgium are again without star player Emma Meismann, who suffered a foot injury in the group stage. She was forced to support her team from the bench.

Measman’s absence was especially felt on the rebound. Without Meismann’s height, Belgium were clearly centimeters short under the hoop, allowing Australia to completely dominate the plate. The big difference in rebounds is telling: 23 for Belgium and no less than 48 for the Opals.

The Belgian cats were also not good defensively, and the Australian team managed to completely control the game before halftime: 37-52. In the 2nd half, national coach Demory looked for solutions, but the home side always had an answer ready and led by as many as 24 points.

The final quarter celebrated Australia’s lead and the Belgian Cats were able to partially limit the damage: 69-86. Four years ago, Belgium women reached the semi-finals on their World Cup debut. That’s not really possible in this tournament, and certainly not after Meismann’s injury.

The next big target for the Cats is the European Championships, which will be played next summer. Qualifiers for that tournament resume at the end of November when Belgium plays for its own people against North Macedonia and Bosnia.

National coach Valeri Demori was not satisfied with the intensity he saw from his team before halftime. “I was a bit disappointed in the first half. Maybe because of the absence of Emma, ​​but in the first half we showed too little intensity to win the quarter-finals of the World Cup,” criticized the Frenchman.

“The quarter-final is always an important moment in a big tournament. Our second half was very good in terms of intensity, but if you want to be in the competition you have to play 40 minutes.”

“I didn’t see the defensive movement I was used to in the first half. We have a young team without Emma. We made a lot of mistakes today but we will learn from them.”

“It’s a good team and can improve a lot. We’re going to work hard in training. This experience will help us for the next European Championship if we qualify.”

“It’s a pity we couldn’t play our best game because we could have made it a real match,” Antonia Delare said after the quarter-final.

“We weren’t sharp enough on defense and couldn’t execute our game plan offensively. We didn’t play our best basketball.”

“Australia is definitely a medal candidate, but I still feel we had our chances. So I have a mixed feeling that I didn’t get everything out of it.”

“I remember from this World Cup, we know where we can go with this group, which is to reach the final at the European Championships,” said Delray already looking ahead.