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Great Britain women beat Finland 17-14 in the first leg of their European Handball Championship clash in Helsinki.

Despite leading for much of the game, it was the performance of British goalkeeper Sarah Hargreaves that shone in a low-scoring match.

The Danish-based player had a save ratio of 65 per cent, to the delight of head coach Jesper Holmris.

"Sarah was world class today, and with that save rate Finland were really struggling," he said.

Other good contributions came from Nina Heglund and Sophia Cannon who both scored three, while the other goals were spread across the team with ten players on the scoresheet.

However, Holmris was still not happy ahead of this weekend's return leg in Liverpool.

I'm pleased with the result. To have a three goal lead and home advantage on Saturday is great. It was much more than we expected.

But we didn't play well. We had awesome fighting spirit and our defence was very strong, but we made a lot of mistakes.

We missed a lot of easy chances, including three penalties, so we're looking forward to a better performance in Liverpool.

Captain Lynn McCafferty started superbly with her trademark unforgiving defensive style, while in attack Heglund and Cannon punished Finland with some good fast-break goals.

And the British performance proves just how much they have developed since they last met in Cyprus in March 2008, when Finland beat GB 29-16 on their way to victory in the European Challenge Trophy.

More than the Games / Eurosport