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After progressing to the second round of the European Championships two seasons ago, we will look to do the same again this season and maintain our ranking in the top 20 and in Pot 2 of the European teams. Our draw is difficult and features the host nation, Czechia, who will fancy their chances of advancing given the success of achieving home court advantage, thanks for last season's consolation tournament.

Our fixtures are as follows:
- Czechia (away)
- Montenegro
- Ireland
- Bosnia
- Norway
- Serbia
- Latvia

As mentioned above, the draw is difficult but with some good game shape, tactical choices and a bit of luck, it is possible for us to progress into the second round. Our challengers for second spot will be Bosnia, Latvia and last season's beaten finalists in the Consolation tournament, Serbia, who actually defeated Czechia in the semi-finals. The draw has been kinder to us than it has to Latvia and Bosnia, but is still challenging with two of our most important games coming at the end of the schedule.

England 116-134 Czechia
This game was always going to be one where the odds were stacked against us, due to Czechia having home court advantage for the Championships and the strength and depth of their squad. This was amplified with the game shape of the two teams, with Czechia's squad in better shape, despite three of our key players being on 9GS.

The first games of the season can always throw up some surprises with teams on equal enthusiasm, so I thought I would throw a GDP guess in to see where it would take us. Unfortunately my GDP guess was incorrect, which made the game almost impossible to win and it was a case of damage limitation. Our situation worsened just two minutes into the game when Ad Harris went down injured - this was a key loss as he's our primary rebounder and offers so much more than the backup Centres we had available to us. Czechia took full advantage and destroyed us in the first half, making the result slightly embarrassing but we recovered things in the third quarter to reduce the deficit.

Next week we face our easiest opponent, Montenegro. We will be looking to bounce back with a big win. Despite using more effort, Latvia lost to Bosnia which makes qualification extremely difficult for them. Serbia and Norway registered comfortable wins against Ireland and Montenegro respectively.

In the other groups, Hungary won a close fought game against Israel after the game went to overtime and Italy beat Estonia in another close encounter.