GB water polo head coach Nick Buller has told Sports Mole that he has been left 'disappointed' after his side were comprehensively beaten 11-3 by Serbia this morning at the European Games.
The result means that the team can now only finish in either 11th or last place in the tournament, while Serbia, who had been without a win all campaign until today, could progress to as high as seventh.
"I'm really disappointed for the girls," Buller told Sports Mole after the match. "The effort they put in can't be faltered. We got off to a bad start and we knew the match-up would be difficult with the players they had.
"They played from the five-metre mark and we didn't get to grips with that. You could see during the game towards the end, it started to click and we understood how we had to have collective help in dealing with those five-metre free throws. If we play them again in the future, we will learn from that no doubt. It's disappointing for us but it's a lesson. As difficult as it was for them, the girls kept going, and it wasn't their day."
GB's tournament will now end tomorrow as they battle either France or Israel to avoid finishing bottom of the ranking, and Buller admitted that it would be "difficult" to pick his girls up ahead of the encounter.
"Obviously they need a bit of time to themselves to begin with," he added. "But I'm sure they'll recover in terms of focusing for the game tomorrow."
The battle for 11th place gets underway at 9am UK time on Thursday.
Neil Wilkes
