Britain slump to three consecutive European losses

BRITISH women's volleyball coach Audrey Cooper admits there is much work to do after slumping to three straight European Championship defeats in Sheffield.

There was only a slim chance of progressing to the final stages for Cooper's team - and that was erased after a narrow 3-2 defeat to Slovakia, certainly their best performance in a match that lasted over two-and-a-half hours.

However, a 3-1 defeat to Israel and straight sets loss to the Ukraine left Cooper under no illusions about the hard work ahead.

And despite seeing the positives from the opening two defeats, Cooper was less than impressed with the performance against the Ukraine, whose victory secured their progress to next year's finals.

"I was surprised at the way we played," she said. 

"We lost our discipline and for us that's huge and at times we looked disorganised. 

"I'm not surprised that we couldn't put a third game together as that's tough and we haven't had much experience of that."