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Great Britain head coach Jesper Holmris said he was pleased with the performance of his Olympic hopefuls despite losing 30-20 to Austria in their opening European Championship qualifying match.

A late flurry from GB saw them outscore their rivals 5-1 in the closing 10 minutes, which will raise morale ahead of Saturday's clash with former world champions France in Crystal Palace.

But despite Britt Goodwin's six goals, Great Britain could not recover from an 18-12 deficit at the half-time interval.

Holmris remains convinced his side are moving in the right direction however, and believes he saw improvements from the performance in the victory over Finland in the previous round.

"I was happy with our performance," he said. "We have improved even since the Finland match three weeks ago.

"It was a tough game, but we played well and learned a lot. We need to be even more precise with our open chances because we missed too many. We ran out of ideas sometimes against such a tall defence.

"We had good periods of play especially at the end, but it's frustrating because it could've been even closer if we had taken more chances at the end, because Austria were struggling."

GB were down 11-5 after 14 minutes, but a run of three goals two from Holly Lam-Moores and one from captain Lynn McCafferty forced Austria into taking a timeout.

The home side recomposed themselves and went 18-10 ahead with three minutes of the half remaining, until goals from Zoe Van Der Weel and Kathryn Fudge closed the gap to six at the break.

Two minutes into the second half Austria suffered a set-back when Nina Stummvoll received a two-minute penalty, but GB failed to capitalise on their advantage with any goals.

In contrast, when Louise Jukes was similarly given a two-minute penalty, Austria added three while she was off the court.

Now 26-14 ahead, the home side moved in for the kill as GB tired and a run of three goals put them 29-15 ahead, forcing Holmris to take a timeout.

GB tightened up their defence after the timeout, and rallied strongly, outscoring their opponents 5-1 in a final 10-minute period which left Austria - who took another timeout - stunned, but time ran out for Great Britain.

More than the Games / Eurosport