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ENGLAND 86 - 83 BOSNIA
After a close game last week, I come into this anticipating the same kind of game with both teams exchanging blows throughout. The first quarter started brightly with both offences firing and defensive stops hard to come by with the game tied at 23 a piece. The second quarter saw star player, David Carter, go down with an injury and unable to return to action denting the teams confidence; despite this the game remained tied to see the half time score all square at 44-44. In the second half, the lead continued to switch back and fourth but thanks to a last minute flurry, Bosnia edged the third and took a narrow 4 point lead in the final quarter. Throughout the fourth, both teams struggled to score and this quarter turned out to be an opposite of the first with both defences on top and either side unable to gain any sort of advantage in the dying seconds however thanks to Hayden Bryant we managed to claw back the four point deficit from the third to see the first match of overtime this season. In overtime, we were excellent throughout at both ends of the court and the closing stages saw us take the lead thanks to a mid range shot from Michael Bradley and Hayden Bryant sinking one of his FT's.

Once again this week, I felt like we had to TIE in order to keep our chances of qualifying alive. I expected a close game and the injury to David Carter was a massive blow but credit to the team as we had enough to take the game and end up with a record of 4-0. I'm very happy with the start but the tough games come now, we need some key players back for next week and for game shape to improve on some players as the next few weeks make or break our season.

Thanks, once again, to all the managers for the good GS, let's hope we that continues into the business end of the national schedule.

Last edited by js8 at 9/7/2015 5:26:27 PM

Bold and right decision to go for the TIE mate, great stuff!!

Thanks mate.

The group is setup quite well, 4 teams 4-0, 4 teams 0-4, looks like the business end starts now.

Definitely does, the GS of our best players isn't up to the standard it has been recently but nevertheless I think Serbia was always going to be a right off, their far too superior.

Yeah, also realistically you are aiming for the 2nd place (with Serbia wining) to make the next round

Yep

ENGLAND 65 - 80 SERBIA
After a fantastic start to the campaign, England played against the European giants in Serbia. From the very start of the game, Serbia dominated the boards with England struggling to contain Serbia's big men seeing them trail by eight after the first quarter. In the second quarter, the boys warmed up and finally got into gear scoring 18 points against a very strong defence and only conceding 19 with David Carter accumulating 21 points by half time, seeing his side down by 9 at the interval. The third quarter was much the same as the second with both teams exchanging blows and England giving themselves a chance heading into the fourth despite a 10 point deficit. There were moments in the fourth where I thought we were going to claw our way back into it and cause a massive shock however Serbia remained calm in the closing minutes of the game to make clutch shots and sink clinical free-throws showing why they are favourites to advanced in top spot despite David Carter bagging an astonishing 51 points.

When analysing the fixtures at the start of the season, this was always going to be a game I tied due to the strength and depth of the Serbian team. I was pleasantly surprised how throughout the fourth we found ourselves within 6 points of the opposition and continued to push them until the dying stages. I thought I had to go with Patient as our offence due to their very strong defence however David Carter produced a fantastic display to shoot 9-11 from downtown and to accumulate the amount of points he did.

The next two weeks are where we'll either make or break our season with games against Czech Republic and Ukraine. Both games will be extremely tough and we need all players with good GS as there were a few key players this week on 7 GS which won't cut it if we're going to progress out of group. Let's hope GS works in our favour next week and we can pick up the W against Ukraine.

Last edited by js8 at 9/14/2015 4:40:28 PM

UKRAINE 70 - 89 ENGLAND
After picking up the first loss of the campaign, England knew it was imperative to bounce back this week against a tough opponent in Ukraine. Both teams started the game well with the lead interchanging several times. The second quarter saw England pull away slightly thanks to some great defence, notably from Chris O'Riordan who held the 71k, 1.7 DMI big man to 33% shooting along with the offence flowing nicely scoring seven three pointers by the half time interval with England leading 51-42. The third saw England extend their lead to a double digit margin thanks to the continuation of great defence all round and David Carter scoring 9 points and Thomas Powell proving to be a handful coming off the bench. The final quarter saw the Ukrainian's struggle to get any real momentum going to challenge the lead with England proving resilient to hold out for a famous win by a score of 89-70.

Obviously the GDP helped us come out on top but never did I expect to be winning by a margin of 19. I honestly thought before the game began that we had a slight chance but considered ourselves as underdogs. Despite scoring no points and being dominated on the boards, I thought Chris O'Riordan was fantastic in defending the monster of a centre that Ukraine do have. David Carter, once again, shot very nicely along with Kevin Finlay who top scored with 23.

At the start of the season, if someone said to me that we'd be battling it out against Czech Republic for a winner takes all match then I would have bitten your hand off. We enter next weeks game underdogs once again, nevertheless I believe that we have the team capable of producing an upset and making the knockout rounds. A special thank you must go out to all managers this week, the GS was the best we've had yet and I was spoilt for choice between what line up I put out and what offence I chose so thank you very much to all of you out there. Let's keep our feet firmly on the ground and hopefully next week we can be celebrating something special.

Last edited by js8 at 9/22/2015 3:38:06 PM

Great win!

Just wanted to congratulate u and ur community for great season so far. I really think u have good chance for second place vs Czech R.

Best regards,
Lale L:)