Royston’s Paralympic athlete says Team GB can bounce back

Paralympics: Goalball

ROYSTON’S Paralympic goalball star insists Team GB can bounce back from their 7-1 opening match defeat to world champions China on Thursday night.

The home team never really got going against strong opposition in their Group C clash in the Copper Box, where despite a spirited first-half display and strong support from the home crowd, the Chinese were just too good on the night.

Despite the defeat, Britain’s youngest player Bullen was keen to take the positives from her Paralympics debut.

“We made mistakes which put us under pressure but we played really well,” said the 18 year old from Royston. “We thought we could do it.”

At first this looked like it was going to be another close encounter as initially Britain matched the world champions play for play during the cagey opening minutes.

Britain’s opponents opened the scoring with a penalty and doubled their lead just before half time when the ball slipped through Britain’s defensive line.

With the men’s Goalball squad watching from the stands, Anna Sharkey gave her brother Michael and his team-mates something to cheer as she halved the deficit early in the second half.

Britain’s come-back was soon halted in its tracks, however, as the Chinese side immediately re-asserted their two-goal advantage before racing to a 5-1 lead, aided by another penalty and three goals from Wang Ruixue. Two more goals before the end sealed Britain’s fate.

Britain face Finland at 3pm today (Friday) in their second of four Group games, of which the next two are against Brazil (Sunday) and Denmark (Tuesday).