by Alex Hoad at the Basketball Arena

Steve Brown admitted that while he was pleased GB secured a fifth-place finish by winning their two classification games on Saturday, he was still dismayed they had not won a medal.

GB produced an accomplished display to overrun Sweden 59-47 to seal fifth, having despatched Belgium 54-49 early this morning.

Brown, 31, from Sittingbourne, the GB skipper, admitted: "A high is what we ended on but not as high as we’d hoped for, that’s the bottom line of it.

"We came here looking for a medal, we wanted a medal, we prepared for a medal mentally and physically."

On a day of shocks, which saw reigning champions and perennial World No1 the USA beaten in a major competition for the first time in six years, Brown said: "We came in ranked fifth and we go out ranked fifth.

"At the moment the whole table is topsy turvey. The reigining champions are looking for bronze at best, Australia who are ranked third are going for gold, Like I told you at the beginning of the week, there are eight teams here and you can’t write any of them off.

"We’ve come in ranked fifth and beaten every team ranked below us and proved that we are worthy of our ranking.

"We wanted to get higher but unfortunately we couldn’t quite do that.

"The final result of being ranked fifth – it could have been a lot worse."

Brown revealed he was 'at the end of a chapter' and was planning to rest for a couple of weeks, but admitted his thoughts had already turned to Rio 2016.

He said: "I’ll have a couple of weeks off with friends and family - people who have sacrificed so much to allow me to fiulfill my ambitions."

He added: "It feels like the end of a chapter. We were working towards this, it was our goal. Now we’ll go away, draw a line and start afresh.

"I was injured seven years ago. I found out about wheelchair rugby and the London games while I was laying in my hospital bed.

"It's been a jhe journey that I've made to be here as captain and other than wishing we’d finished higher, there’s nothing more I could have asked."

He revealed: "You instantly start thinking about Rio. We’ll reflect, look at what went right and what went wrong.

"We’ll look at moving forward, other teams are going to progress, we are going to have to progress.

"I’m already looking forward to Rio. You can’t stop. You’re an athlete, you have to work and work and work.

"You can’t go in two years time ‘maybe i’ll have a go at Rio’ - I’ve got to start now."

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Below story from 11am on Saturday.

Steve Brown revealed he was told by England rugby captain Chris Robshaw that he was ‘hooked’ by his first taste of wheelchair rugby as GB reached the 5-place play-off on Saturday morning.

GB skipper Brown met his counterpart after the entertaining 54-49 win over Belgium infront of a sparse but noisy crowd at the Basketball Arena at 9.30am.

The hosts fell behind 15-13 at the end of the first quarter but some aggressive defence forced several turnovers and allowed them to win the second 16-11 for a 29-26 lead at half-time and they had extended it to 43-36 after the third with more committed play.

Aaron Phipps, GB’s 3.5pt player, scored 28 goals for GB, as the team rotated their line-up to ensure they coped as well as possible with Belgium’s star-man Lars Mertens, their 3.5pt man.

Teams are only allowed to have four players worth a combined 8.0pts on the floor at any time meaning they have to use tactics to include some of the players with lower points and hence more physical restrictions.

Brown, 31, from Sittingbourne, explained: “It was a game of matching them man for man. Putting our high-pointers against theirs.

“We think that per player we’ve got that slight edge on them and we looked bright, matching our speed to the speed of them and it worked to our favour today.”

The second quarter turnaround was the complete opposite of the second quarter of Friday’s defeat to Japan which cost GB a place in the semi-finals, and Brown said: “Like yesterday maybe there were one or two lucky bounces and it really does come down to that sometimes.

“You have got to capitalise on it, if you can you’ve got a bit more in your chest, you feel a bit prouder, you look up at the score and you’re in the lead and it gives you that adrenaline - that bit extra.”

He added: “The crowd was not as big as it has been the last few days but they were still 100 per cent behind us which helps us.”

Among the crowd was Robshaw, watching his first wheelchair rugby game, and Brown said: “I’ve just been and had my photo taken with him.

“He thought it was fantastic. What I like is straight away he was talking about the tactical side of it and how hard-hitting it was and the impact it has when you first watch the game.

“That’s what we want. We want it to be thrilling and exciting and a hook for people. That’s exactly what he said it was.”

Robshaw said: "It's brilliant to see. You don't realise how big the hits are on TV. When you're here you can feel the sound and it echoes around the arena.

"We were saying it would be brilliant to have a go. I don't know how happy our coach would be if we did but it looks a great game and it's very exciting to watch.”

GB will face either Sweden or France in the 5/6 play-off at 9.15pm tonight (Saturday) and Brown said: “We’ll have a plan nomatter who it is.

“If it’s Sweden, we played them in the Europeans and they won. We’ve played them since and we won. Both squads are very close.

“We’ve got ideas for what we want to do. We always watch our opponents and will be looking out to see what players are on form, what areas we can capitalise on.”

GB beat France in their group game on Thursday, 57-50.