Charles van Commenee delivered a frank assessment of his Aviva GB team's performance at the Euro Team Championships.

The UK Athletics head coach has been tasked with maximising the experience and performances of Britain's 2012 Olympic prospects.

And after a weekend of mixed performances in Portugal, the Dutchman - in the post since February - was in reflective mood.

The highly-respected coach has drawn praise from inside the Team GB camp and former drug cheat Dwayne Chambers is among those impressed by his common-sense attitude.

Chambers, who contributed 24 points with his 100 metres and 200m victories as the injury-ravaged team finished third behind Germany and Russia, said: "His team speeches are kind of inspiring.

"You should be a fly on the wall. He's pretty cool, he's chilled out and down to earth, and just wants us to do the best we can."

David Greene won the 400 metres hurdles, Hannah England impressed in the 800m as a late replacement for Jenny Meadows despite only finishing fourth, Mo Farah won the 5000m and Kate Dennison raised her UK pole vault record to 4.55m.

Van Commenee was happy to take positives from those performances and said: "I was not surprised but happy that somebody like Dave Greene, who is about to break through and was representing his country for the first time, lived up to expectations and delivered.

"It's important that we have that calibre of athlete to step up, so hopefully he can make the final at the world championships (in August).

"This is the first time he has not run anonymously somewhere and had a fast time. Now with eyes of the nation on him, he did a really good job.

"It's not a surprise also with Hannah England, who made a breakthrough in the 800m which is not her main distance, that is a good sign in the same category (as Greene), I would say.

"(For them) to step up to world level they were the important, positive things that I picked up here.

"There was confirmation that Mo Farah is a great athlete, now not only running fast, but with great acceleration."

Van Commenee was content with the team's performance in Portugal but did not shirk away from the fact there are some events in which British athletes are seriously trailing their rivals.

He said: "Coming to the competition you want to win. But finishing third is acceptable.

"Obviously we had some very weak events -

we knew that in advance. But there were some positives for me, so overall I would say it was an acceptable performance."

Van Commenee whose next major task is selecting the World Championships team for Berlin, admitted: "Yes, we are appalling in the throws and the women's jumps but we knew that and we're not going to surprise the world in the next few weeks.

"But I'm focusing on the positive, certainly in the light of London of course."