GREAT BRITAIN captain Lynn McCafferty believes her side’s reputation in the handball workd will have grown despite their Euro 2012 qualifying defeat to Russia on Saturday.

Britain lost 24-16 in the Group Three game at Crystal Palace and look unlikely to reach next year’s event in Holland. However, they put up a good fight against the current world champions and matched their more illustrious opponents for much of the first half.

Jesper Holmris’ side, featuring Suffolk’s Louise Jukes, were only formed a few years ago and McCafferty thinks Saturday’s result is the sign of the progress that has been made.

“We’re really happy with the performance,” she said.

“After (a heavy defeat to) Montenegro we worked on several areas of our game to identify what we could do better.

“We worked on our defence and some of the little mistakes we made, and I think we’ve shown that we managed to fix things.

“We can take so many positives away from the game and feel good that we’re learning so much from this week.

“We can have confidence that we know how to address our weaknesses. But people in the handball world won’t take us for granted now, so we need to keep up the hard work.”

Britain return to action next month when they take part in the London Handball Cup, which is the official test event for the 2012 Olympics.