Croatia have stayed in Division 1 after winning their relegation battle against Australia 5-1. Australia return to Division 2 after just one season in the higher division.

Australia all but owned the first five minutes of this relegation decider playing with no hint that they were ranked 7 places lower than their Croatian opposition. They pulled off several forays deep into Croatian territory, giving the Croat defence all sorts of concerns, if not Belic in the net.

Croatia started to swing the momentum back their way, helped by a shared couple of penalties that exposed weakness to both Australian special teams. Stransky was the Australian offender and had a good opportunity accepting a long pass as he left the penalty bench, but it would be Croatia who would score first; Zibret forcing home past Ezzy.

The first period was played at a decent pace, which all but disappeared from both sides in the second period. This may be attributed to Zibret scoring a neat goal just 16 seconds into the period which seemed to leave both teams undecided as to what to do.

But, the main issue was Australia's inability to exert pressure with the man advantage. Two penalties resulted in little real activity in the Croat zone; so little in fact that Mladjenovic spent significant amounts of time hanging high looking for an opportune escape.

Zibret got a natural hattrick with a mid-range shot in front of Belic before Australia finally converted the third of their powerplay opportunities when Starke was left unchecked by the defence with just 25 seconds left in the period.

The goal did seem to spark more life into Australia, but they seemed to again find the last step difficult to take in front of Belic. As a result, when the next goal game, it fell to Croatia after Mario Novak intercepted a poor Australian clearance from behind their own net. Australia hadn't had time to recover to the possession loss to stop Kucera scoring from the post.

If there was any doubt that the game was over, Mladjenovic made sure just over a minute later scoring as the trailing player.

Australia have by no means been embarrassed in their first Division 1 appearance, but they were without doubt the 6th team in the group. Croatia have show that they are still a tidy hockey team who should still have the measure of any team currently in Division 2.