South coast volleyball ace Dan Hunter admitted the London 2012 dream was all-but over after Team GB fell to a third consecutive defeat at Earls Court late on Thursday night.

Hunter and his teammates came into the Italy clash on the back of a pair of humbling defeats in their opening Olympic clashes against Australia and Bulgaria .

And if they were hoping for some respite it certainly didn’t come on Thursday as Italy disposed of them in three straight sets.

With Italy ranked sixth in the world to GB’s 92nd the reverse was far from a surprise and leaves them with only the slimmest mathematical chance of progressing out of Pool A.

Hunter and co. would most likely need to win both their remaining fixtures in straight sets to keep the dream alive – a significant long shot.

However while the Olympic journey appears to be nearing its end Hunter insisted the experience had certainly not lost its gloss.

For the third consecutive game the Poole ace experienced the home crowd at its most partisan at Earls Court and he said: “To come up against Italy is first of all great for us because at a normal event we would have to qualify through so many rounds to get to play someone like them.

"So it was a great experience to play them. We have got to enjoy something like that and play our best and just enjoy the experience.

"In five years we have got to this level and we are proud of that and we are going to give anything. We didn't get the results we wanted in the first two games and the Italy game was obviously a tough one.

"We are going to make the most of the last two games, come out fighting and see what we can do.

"We targetted the first two games to try and get a qualify through the quarter-finals and put our energy and scouting into those games.

"It was a big ask and it always was going to be to qualify from where we came from in terms of our preparation."

To stand a chance of qualifying victories against Poland and Argentina will be the order of the day on Saturday and Monday respectively.

With both sides ranked in the top ten – indeed at No. 3 Poland are on paper a better outfit than the Italians they faced on Thursday – Hunter accepts it is going to be a tough task.

However he is relishing the opportunity to chance his arm and go up against the cream of world volleyball.

"Poland are going to have more fans than us in the stadium on Saturday and it is going to be great for us because Poland are one of the top volleyball nations in the world," he added.

"It'll be good to see if our home crowd can battle it out with the Polish crowd. It is going to be a great game and for us like the Italy game a great opportunity to play against some legendary players."

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