Phillips eyes world medal repeat for GB

Tony Hand’s side have endured a difficult start to their Division 1A campaign in Ljubljana, Slovenia, losing to both the hosts and gold medal favourites Austria.

With three games remaining, however, Phillips – who also captains Sheffield Steelers – believes the opportunity to emulate last year’s silver medal in Kiev remains very much alive.

“It was always going to be a difficult start against those two teams and, if I’m honest, our performances deserved more – certainly against Slovenia,” he said.

The first of Britain’s remaining three games will be at lunchtime on Wednesday against Ukraine, who they beat 5-3 on their way to a memorable second-place finish last year.

“We’ve still got a lot of self-belief in the room despite the first two games and, while I think Austria will go on and win gold, I really believe the other two medal positions are wide open for the other five teams, including us,” added Phillips.

“We’ve got a great group of lads who have been in the programme for a number of years now and this is a big opportunity for us to go and get another medal.”

Head coach Hand finally arrived in Ljubljana late on Monday night after his travel plans were disrupted by missing a connecting flight. He had already missed the first day of competition – leaving assistant coach Doug Christiansen to step up – due to his commitments with Manchester Phoenix and their participation at the English Premier League play-off finals weekend in Coventry.

Phoenix edged out Sheffield Steeldogs 6-5 after a shoot-out but lost out 4-1 to Slough jets in Sunday’s final.

But after a nightmare trip over to Eastern Europe, Hand was straight into Tuesday’s practice session in a bid to help his team open their account for the tournament against Ukraine. The former Soviet republic has also endured a tough start, following up Sunday’s 5-4 defeat to Austria with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of group leaders Hungary, who Britain face on Saturday in their final game.

Some people have predicted that Thursday’s game between Britain and Japan - also winless - will actually decide who is relegated to Division 1B.

But Phillips believes the performances shown already by Hand’s team prove they stand as good a chance as their rivals for one of the two medals he believes are still on offer.

“We are definitely confident going into the Ukraine game – we’re not even thinking about the other two after that,” said Phillips.

“They are a very skilled team but if we can go at them like we did last year we are more than capable of taking another three points off them.

“We know as a group that we have improved in the last few years and we know there’s not much in it when it comes to winning games against the likes of Slovenia.

“Anything can happen now in this event.”

[email protected]

Twitter: @philarra