I had been looking forward to last night's game against Finland in the European Championships pre-qualifying for three months, playing it over and over in my head.
 

This was a team who 18 months ago we had suffered a 13-goal defeat to in the European Challenge Trophy in Cyprus, but lot has happened to us since then and we have developed into a much stronger force.
 

The first leg was the away leg in Helsinki. We had three training sessions prior to the game where we went through our defence and set plays over and over again. We also watched Finland play on video and reminded ourselves of what they were like.
 

We knew their favourite shots, feints, set plays and weaknesses. We’d set our statistic goals, process goals and outcome goals. I don’t think we could have been more prepared. The nerves struck me the morning of the match, I felt sick to my stomach. There was one more training session to execute and I tried to let some of those butterflies loose.
 

Everyone took a few hours to get their heads down during the afternoon and think about those strengths we hold as individuals like our coach Jesper Holmris had told us. The spirits rose as we turned on our favourite songs out on the corridor and got into our match kit.
 

GB piled on to the bus with Finland and we continued to sing and play those songs although this didn’t seem to be enough practise for the national anthem. We could have easily qualified as the worst Great Britain team to ever sing "God Save The Queen", but never the less it didn’t seem to affect our performance!
 

A crowd of 400 came to see the game, eight of those were supporting us but they made themselves heard. Our team captain Lynn McCafferty yelled out "TEAM" and we replied "GB!’" and were ready to go. I was ready to go. Eight of us knew what it was like to lose against Finland, and we were not going to let it happen again.
 

The whistle went and we threw ourselves straight into the game, keeping Finland at bay and only letting them score four after the first twenty minutes. However we had missed three penalties already, something we had to put right.
 

Half-time approached us we were leading 9-7, a lead that our goalkeeper Sarah Hargreaves (pictured) played a huge part in with a 60 per cent save rate. We had also missed six or seven 100 per cent chances which we should have put away. The Finns came out of their changing room all guns blazing, spurred on by their partisan crowd.
 

They scored two almost instantly without reply from us, but it wasn’t enough. We took the lead once again and that was the closest the Finnish girls got to us the rest of the game.
 

Hargreaves continued to stop the big shooters from putting the ball in the back of the goal. Nina Heglund came on in the last stages of the game and put away three, making sure that the win was ours.

One down, one to go. A huge sense of relief came over me, we had played our hearts out and although we didn’t play as well as we could have the win is still ours to bring back to Liverpool. The nerves turned to joy and all the hard work that we had done over the last 18 months had paid off.
 

But it’s not over yet. We have done half the job, which we hope to finish off on Saturday.
 

I am aware that it’s not going to easy as the Finns are not best pleased about being beaten on home soil against a team they easily overcame a year and a half ago. But it’s still ours for the taking.

Winning the second leg will be the greatest victory a British handball team has ever had and will bring us straight to a clash against a strong France side who were world champions in 2003, as well as matches against Austria and Iceland.
 

If we get the opportunity to play these nations it will be our first taster of the competition we will face in 2012 and it will be a huge learning curve for us and will also put Great Britain on the international scene.

I know it’s a lot to ask to win these games but we will be playing against some of the best players in the world who we can learn a great deal from. These are the moments we train every single day for, the moments we dream of.

Teenager Holly Lam-Moores from Burnley has been playing handball since 2004 and at London 2012 hopes to be a member of the first British team to play in the Olympics. Tickets are still available for Saturday's match against Finland at the Echo Arena in Liverpool by clicking here.