GB Senior Women Get Winning Start in Italy

Great Britain’s senior women’s team got their international campaign off to a positive start with a 59-51 Saturday night victory over Italy in Rome.

Harvard University student Temi Fagbenle produced the standout display with 22 points and seven rebounds, but it was an impressive team performance, in particular defensively, which caught the eye.

“That (the team’s defensive performance) was good,” said Head Coach Peter Buckle. “We were a little bit sluggish defensively at the start, in the first half and in the third quarter, so we’ve really got to keep working on that.

“But the pleasing thing is that we did raise the workrate and the tempo defensively and it started to turn the game in our favour.”

Of Fagbenle’s performance, he added:

“Her performance was really important for Great Britain. She’s just fitting in and she is slowly coming into the group. The rest of the group have certainly welcomed her in with open arms and she is a very genuine person so it’s fantastic that she can get a good game like that. ”

“But it wasn’t just down to Temi and we have to give credit elsewhere. The likes of Eilidh Simpson off the bench just nailing a really important, wide open shot, Stef Collins lifting the tempo and Nicole How. It wasn’t just one, but it was certainly a lot of people raising their game and having some good performances as the game went on.”

Simpson & Collins added 11 points each, with Collins leading the team in rebounds with 9.

Peter Buckle began his first game as Great Britain Senior Women’s Head Coach with an experienced starting lineup. GB’s veteran playmaker Stef Collins won her 109th cap at point guard, with Steph Gandy, Ella Clark, Fagbenle and Azania Stewart joining her in the starting five. Eleven players were introduced into the game, with the sole exception of Sheffield Hatters’ Lauren Thomas-Johnson who missed proceedings with a bruised heel.

It was a slow start for the visitors, as the Italians registered the first three scoring shots before Gandy added two points on the board for GB, after recovering her own offensive rebound mid-way through the opening quarter. GB playcaller Buckle tried his combinations out with ten players seeing court time before the end of the first quarter alone. However it was the Italians who led by six at the end of the first quarter, 20-14.

GB picked up the tempo in the second quarter and started to find their rhythm both offensively and defensively. The Italians struggled to penetrate the GB defense and had to be content with just nine points in the quarter. The first of three 3-pointers from Eilidh Simpson with 4:13 remaining in the half seemed to spark something within the British side and they went into the locker rooms just two behind, 29-27.

Buckle sent out his starting five again after the half-time break but Italy started the sharper and when their leading points scorer on the night Giulia Gatti landed two free throws with three minutes gone in the second half, the home side led by 9, 37-28.

With 4:36 remaining, Italy playcaller Roberto Ricchini changed his whole team with Gatti among those to leave the floor. It proved to be a costly move for the home team as GB put on a scoring run of 10-1 with Simpson’s latest three and Fagbenle’s two points from the line putting them in front for the first time in the game.

They led 43-42 going into the final quarter with both teams making substitutions. But one of the few constants was the scoring power of Fagbenle who added nine points in the final ten minutes. When Collins landed a three to extend GB’s advantage to 11 with 2:35 left, an Italian comeback always looked unlikely. So it proved with Great Britain claiming their first W of the season on a final scoreline of 59-51.

The two sides meet again at the same venue in Rome on Sunday with an 18:00 BST tip-off time.