Assistant coach Valentyn Berestnev insists Ukraine will continue to fight for EuroBasket qualification despite the setback of losing to Sweden in midweek.

A win against Poland on Saturday is now essential if Ukraine are to have any chance of making it through the qualifiers.

Poland have already booked their place at EuroBasket 2007 from Group A, must engineer a win at the weekend and hope Bulgaria beat Sweden to ensure their berth.

"Despite the fact we don't have many chances to qualify we'll show our real power at the last game against Poland," said Berestnev.

"We missed the injured Artur Drozdov at the decisive minutes of the game against Sweden.

"During the match we changed our defense and it worked. With three minutes to the buzzer we trailed just four points. However, we failed to come back."

Guard Vitaliy Boyko, who scored 13 points during his 19 minutes on court against Sweden, added: "At first it was hard for me to adopt for the game. But in general I think I did my work fine.

"If we don't qualify this year we have a good chance of claiming the last berth in the additional qualifying round. Maybe our team lacks some experience but we have a great desire to win."