By Elizabeth Hudson BBC Sport in Athens

Pool A: Canada, Great Britain, Australia, France, Brazil, Italy Pool B: USA, Holland, Iran, Japan, Germany, Greece The lowdown on the GB team Latest results from Athens

The British men's wheelchair basketball team made a disappointing start to their Paralympic campaign, losing 51-48 to European champions Italy.

Things looked promising for them when they led 26-20 at half-time thanks to some good work from Simon Munn, Jon Pollock and Colin Price.

But poor shooting allowed Italy edge in front in the fourth quarter.

Munn top-scored on 14 points for GB, who face Australia in their second game on Sunday.

"It was our shooting which lost us the game and personally I am disappointed with the number of shots I missed," said Munn.

"I shot superbly in training but I left that in the gym.

"But morale is good in the camp and we will go back to training later and work on a few things."

GB coach Dave Titmuss knows his side must improve for Sunday's big clash against Australia.

"Defensively, we played very well and I have no complaints but offensively, some our key players didn't perform," he told BBC Sport.

Hopefully we will come out like a wounded lion against Australia GB coach Dave Titmuss

"There are plenty of teams who lose their opening games and go on to win the tournament.

Great Britain's shooting was way off-key throughout the closely-contested game and they managed just 26 per cent of their shots from the floor, something Titmuss found difficult to explain.

"We've never shot as badly like that before but it is different shooting in an arena like this one.

"But the players are obviously disappointed not to have beaten the European champions.

"Hopefully we will come out like a wounded lion against Australia and if we can cut loose offensively and play the same sort of defence, then we will have a good chance."

There was never more than a basket or two in it all through the game with the sides tied at 12 apiece at the end of the first quarter and 36 each after the third quarter.

Italian duo Matteo Cavagnini and Sandro Cherubini did much of the damage for Italy with 17 and 13 points respectively.

Britain narrowly missed out on a bronze medal at the Sydney Games four years ago after a last-gasp loss to USA.

Earlier on Saturday, Canada comfortably cruised past Brazil 78-55 in the opening match of the tournament