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ENGLAND 82 - 65 GREECE
After progressing through to the next round of the Euro's, England wanted to continue where they left off from the last game with a trip to Greece. The first quarter saw us get off to a great start on both ends of the court with Mark Salley impressing with 16 points and 8 rebounds, seeing England take a 27-14 lead. The second saw England maintain their lead continuing to dominate inside the paint, despite committing a few too many turnovers. The half time buzzer saw Greece trail by a score of 50-32. Throughout the second half, both teams traded blows throughout with neither team being able to build momentum to extend the lead or claw their way back into it. The second half finished with Greece narrowly edging it 33-32 however England won the overall proceedings to take the first game of the second round and build on their fantastic season.

Looking at the group, we have a load of tough games and rightly so as every country in this stage deserves to be here. It will be extremely tough to qualify for the semis but there's no reason why we can't after upsetting the odds against Ukraine and Czech Republic. Similar to the first round, we will take one game at a time and lets see where that takes us. With regards to the tactics, I thought they were spot on today with Mark Salley leading the way with a season high 33 points and 21 rebounds. It also shows the depth of the squad this season as our best player of the season, David Carter, was left out today and Steven Ward done a good job of filling his boots with 10 points and 5 assists, so overall a lot of positives from the game.

Once again, thank you to all managers for the great GS, we will need the same next week as we battle it out against Croatia.

Very good performance, I think you're doing a great job js. What do you expect from this round?

Thanks mate. I'm quietly confident that we can raise the profile of the England U21 team and challenge the likes of Germany and Lithuania for a semi spot but it'll be very tough.

Loving it

CROATIA 81 - 90 ENGLAND
After a fantastic win last week, England were looking to build on the previous victory to mount a challenge for qualifying for the semis. England encountered a tough opponent in Croatia with the latter getting the better of the English defence is the first quarter to score 22 points to England's 19. In the second, England bounced back and started to gain some momentum with both sides of the court operating well and Hayden Bryant leading the stats with 16 points and 3 assists at half-time. The major concern for England at half-time was Mark Salley's four fouls after dominating the Croatian centre, despite this England led by 38-39. In the second half, England came out all guns blazing and managed to forge a two possession lead, mainly because of the excellence of Mark Salley on both ends of the court. Heading into the fourth, the game was still there for the taking with England leading 57-64. Croatia outplayed us for the majority of the first half of the last quarter but PF Chris O'Riordan managed to gobble up some match-winning offensive rebounds allowing England to once again regain a slight lead. Croatia continually pushed and challenged the English rearguard but were unable to claw there way back into the game seeing England victorious by a score of 90-81 and take them to 2-0.

Another fantastic result for us, the team seems to be grinding out some big results this season. As Morwood previously mentioned, O'Riordan grabbed some crucial boards at crucial times for us in the game and was fantastic at containing the Croatia PF. Hayden Bryant and Mark Salley both had good box scores along with Daniel Dunne who played in his first game for almost four weeks.

Again, the GDP guess was pivotal in getting us over the line today. Next week, we play Lithuania who are also 2-0 so this is a vital game in the outcome of whether we qualify. I'm not moaning here but the game shape was probably the worst it's been this season with a few key players having respectable GS but nevertheless it got us over the line and hopefully it can improve next week against Lithuania.

Just realised we're up to 16th in the ranking. Considering we were 43rd at the start of last season, it shows we're heading in the right direction and the managers out there training are doing a fantastic job. Great achievement to all involved.

Hi, I'll be looking to run in the future for this team. I am currently a scout on the american under 21 I have one season under my belt. I was recently a picked chosen to run for under 21 as a successor of the New zeland under 21 which I may run again there sometime soon. I have a job from 5-9 monday through thursday but I set my lineups early etc. I'm 25 % British my grandma is 100% Britiish but I am American born. I applied to colleges for division 1 jobs here in the Nc when I was younger just trying to get notice no big time programs but one did call me state call me the rest were small programs. I'm just looking for some options to run for in the future I would like to run for England as well since I am britisih. My grandma side of the family is from southamptoon uk!

Fabulous that you have English blood in your veins but you may need to be slightly more involved in the community. ;). Personally I'm confident / hoping our current u21 coach stays on.