British juniors claim silver in warm-up tournament

Competing against Germany, France and Russia, the British girls - who secured an historic seventh place at last year's European Junior Championships in Ukraine - scored an impressive 37 goals in their three matches.

City of Manchester's Casey Smith finished top scorer for the British team with nine goals while City of Liverpool's Kate Thompson was voted goalkeeper of the tournament.

Head coach Nick Hume reports:

We started off on the Friday night against the old foe France - a team we beat in our final match to finish seventh in Ukraine last summer.

We pulled ourselves together and frightened the lives out of the Russians - it's fair to say their coach wasn't best pleased.

Traditionally it's been a close battle but this time GB managed to take an early stranglehold on the game and forge ahead to notch up a commanding 14-6 victory.

Next up were Germany and although they came out with all guns blazing we sucked up the pressure well at the back. We grew from a half time lead of 6-5 and eventually pulled away to win 16-6.

Last up were the mighty Russians, current European Junior Champions, and a formidable team who beat us 18-3 last summer.

We couldn't match their physicality early on and Russia ran away to a 9-1 lead but the team then pulled themselves together and frightened the lives out of the Russians, coming back to 10-6. It's fair to say the Russian coach wasn't best pleased!

Injuries got the better part of the team in the last quarter and the Russians overpowered us to win 18-7.

For many of the players, this was their first experience at an international tournament and if the current team continues to improve as it is currently, we can expect positive things at the European Championships in Madrid in late August.

British Gas GBR Junior Women's Water Polo results - 4 Nations

v France:  Won 14-6
Scorers:  Casey 3, Tuesday 4, Sophie 1, Katie 2, Laura 2, Maria 1, Lauren 1

v Germany: Won 16-6
Scores: Laura 2, Casey 4, Sophie 2, Katie 4, Courtney 1, Lauren 1, Tuesday 1, Kathryn 1,

v Russia: Lost 18 -7
Scorers:  Katie 1, Lauren 2, Casey 2, Courtney 1, Tuesday 1