ESTONIA 82-96 ENGLAND
Entering the last couple of games of the round robin pool stage, England traveled to the home of Estonia who were undefeated. The game started with both teams showing their intent in getting the W under there belt to aid in their qualification with England leading by 2 points and Mark Halflife once showing his pedigree, scoring 14 points. One down note was that we lost Clint Hood early who bagged two three pointers in two minutes off the bench. We continued the second quarter in the same vain, as did Halflife who continued to torment the Estonia guard to extend our lead to 9 at the half. Within the last two quarters, we didn't ever come under severe pressure and managed the game superbly with George Storie and Phil MacNeish slowly joining the party to bag double-digit points to support the excellent Halflife who finished with a season high 41 points, to see the score end at 96-82.
After a tough loss last week, we battled back superbly this week to keep our chances of qualifying alive. After numerous chats with Morwood, I felt we got the lineup spot on with all of our starters ending up as the top scorers. I also took a risk that paid off by predicting them and after the disappointment of last week, I was absolutely chuffed with the performance.
In order to qualify, we firstly need to beat Portugal and overturn a point differential of 70 so it's a very very tough ask but I still believe we can qualify. Let's pray for good game shape next week.