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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:)

Great win js! The defence definitely came through for us.

Thank you mate, I do think we have a great chance of qualifying but it will be tough.

Cheers Blur mate!

WE DONE IT!! We've qualified using a normal and we're heading to the next round!

Report will follow shortly.

Well done mate. First time England u21s have qualified for a number of seasons. Congrats to you and the trainers of the team. (And to the previous u21 coaches).

Well done all involved

ENGLAND 68 - 62 CZECH REPUBLIC
Heading into the final game, the stakes were high for both sides with the outcome of the game deciding who takes the final spot of the qualifying places to head into the next round. England and Czech Republic both went into the game on the back of one loss and both defences started fantastically limiting the number of points on both sides of the court. Astonishingly, we scored four points in the first quarter, trailing by 8. The second quarter was much of the same with both offences struggling to break down the D and gather any momentum. At the half time interval the Czech Republic had a lead of 26-21 in what was an extremely low scoring half. The third quarter was an exact replica of the first however this time, we found ourselves on the positive end of it scoring 22 points to Czech Republic's 9 thanks to David Carter and Christopher Whyman collecting the majority of the points which saw England take a slender lead into the fourth, leading by 43-35. England picked up where they left off in the third gaining a double digit lead with 4 minutes remaining however the Czech players continued to push and were rewarded with a couple of threes to bring the score back to a single possession game. In the dying stages of the game, the momentum shifted once more to see England regain a seven point lead and close out the game with some clinical FT's to send the delirious English fans into celebration.

The game was pretty similar to last week really with us guessing a GDP and having to normal the game. I know I've said this most weeks but our defence was quality today and got us over the finish line in the end. Despite scoring four points in the first quarter and only 21 by half time, I thought the offence done ok considering the quality of opposition we were up against. I was also very impressed with our rebounding today as Mark Salley and Christopher Whyman gobbled up boards left, right and centre.

As I said last week, I never thought we'd have the chance to be pushing for qualification out of the round robin but due to the strength and depth of the team this season, we have achieved something very special indeed and have the chance to prove ourselves even more against the big-boys of Europe. I personally have to thank every manager of every player so far as the game shape has been impeccable all season, so thank you all.

Now we go onto next week, the draw hasn't been made yet but we will be competing against some of the elite U21 sides in Italy, Spain, etc..

Last edited by js8 at 9/28/2015 5:42:39 PM

That is an epic win (and you started off by only scoring 4 points in the 1st quarter).

Yes it was a remarkable result, one to be very proud of.

Real shame about Brian Kilgour. I assume you have already tried but I contacted his manager and asked him to sell him

If you don't mind me asking, why did you ask to sell him? He's done a fantastic job with him. The only real shame is that he hasn't featured all season because of the monstrous 5 week injury he picked up.