GB’s Scottish captain Lynn McCafferty has spoken of her pride at leading the team out in front of so many of her family and friends.
“It was awesome coming out to the bagpipers,” she said. “But I had to be professional and treat tonight as any other match.
“I’m really happy with the result because its only six goals difference, but when you see the mistakes we’ve made and realise we’re developing there are things we can work on.
“We are really happy, most of all with the defence and Sarah Hargreaves in goal - without them it would have been a different scoreline, so I’m proud as punch, especially how hard everyone worked in defence.
“It was so physical out there so when you get to the other side of the court it’s sometimes hard to put so much into it, because the Austrian girls were so different physically to us - I think one of them was a belly button above me.
“The first half went really, really fast - it’s the fastest match I have ever played! Because we were playing so well in defence we weren’t fast-breaking as we usually do and we were thinking about that during the half.
“Our focus was defence, mainly because we didn’t want to score so many goals in the middle; we wanted our wing players to do more shooting.
“Austria were probably looking at Lyn and I in the middle at the beginning and they probably thought ‘this is going to be a walk in the park’, but we’re pretty tough, like everyone in the team, and we want to stop them scoring goals.
“I’ve got a good partnership with Lyn Byl in defence, but Simona Spiridon for Austria is so tall we couldn’t just let her stand there and wait for the ball. We had to move her all the time and also to make sure we were being aggressive to the girls who were going to pass to her.
“We are really happy with how we defended - one of their best players didn’t score any other goals and their other good players only scored 2-3 goals so it was perfect.
“You could see that they were frustrated and anxious because we were hitting them so hard, and a bit of it is their own fault when they under-estimated us.
“Without these European qualification games we wouldn’t have been able to learn as much as we have learned and that is what this process is about. We’re two years away from the Olympics and we are playing France - we have learnt so much about how they play and what they do and we then adapt our defence and adapt our attack.
“Our last match against Iceland when we played in London was a good match but when we played in Iceland it was really, really poor and we promised each other and the team that we would never have that dip again and when we have this spirit it is a massive positive for us.
“We’ve got our feet on the ground - we know what we have to do and are taking our small steps towards the Olympics.
“It was awesome coming out to the bagpipers, but I had to be professional and treat it as any other match. But when you walk out there and you see a few faces you haven’t seen for a while it’s an awesome feeling.
“They’ve come to support me and the team and it’s about showing them why they have supported me along the way. I had goose-bumps and I am proud of the team.”
“It was awesome coming out to the bagpipers,” she said. “But I had to be professional and treat tonight as any other match.
“I’m really happy with the result because its only six goals difference, but when you see the mistakes we’ve made and realise we’re developing there are things we can work on.
“We are really happy, most of all with the defence and Sarah Hargreaves in goal - without them it would have been a different scoreline, so I’m proud as punch, especially how hard everyone worked in defence.
“It was so physical out there so when you get to the other side of the court it’s sometimes hard to put so much into it, because the Austrian girls were so different physically to us - I think one of them was a belly button above me.
“The first half went really, really fast - it’s the fastest match I have ever played! Because we were playing so well in defence we weren’t fast-breaking as we usually do and we were thinking about that during the half.
“Our focus was defence, mainly because we didn’t want to score so many goals in the middle; we wanted our wing players to do more shooting.
“Austria were probably looking at Lyn and I in the middle at the beginning and they probably thought ‘this is going to be a walk in the park’, but we’re pretty tough, like everyone in the team, and we want to stop them scoring goals.
“I’ve got a good partnership with Lyn Byl in defence, but Simona Spiridon for Austria is so tall we couldn’t just let her stand there and wait for the ball. We had to move her all the time and also to make sure we were being aggressive to the girls who were going to pass to her.
“We are really happy with how we defended - one of their best players didn’t score any other goals and their other good players only scored 2-3 goals so it was perfect.
“You could see that they were frustrated and anxious because we were hitting them so hard, and a bit of it is their own fault when they under-estimated us.
“Without these European qualification games we wouldn’t have been able to learn as much as we have learned and that is what this process is about. We’re two years away from the Olympics and we are playing France - we have learnt so much about how they play and what they do and we then adapt our defence and adapt our attack.
“Our last match against Iceland when we played in London was a good match but when we played in Iceland it was really, really poor and we promised each other and the team that we would never have that dip again and when we have this spirit it is a massive positive for us.
“We’ve got our feet on the ground - we know what we have to do and are taking our small steps towards the Olympics.
“It was awesome coming out to the bagpipers, but I had to be professional and treat it as any other match. But when you walk out there and you see a few faces you haven’t seen for a while it’s an awesome feeling.
“They’ve come to support me and the team and it’s about showing them why they have supported me along the way. I had goose-bumps and I am proud of the team.”
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