European Juniors Championship Report
This competition took place in Herringen-Germany from 28th September until 4th October.
We played the following games:
- Monday - England 1 Italy 11 (Half Time 0-8)
- Tuesday - England 1 Germany 8 (Half Time 0-3)
- Wednesday - England 1 Spain 17 (Half Time 0-13) & England 0 Switzerland 6 (Half Time 0-1)
- Thursday - England 1 Portugal 14 (Half Time 0-9)
- Friday- England 1 France 8 (Half Time 0-1)
The results are mainly due to fitness, reaction capacity and speed. Our team played man to man restricted in all games and when our concentration level was high we always played great defence and created good counter attacks. Most of the goals conceded were due to lack of reaction allowing the teams to score in the area.
The team improved every day and in the last 2 games I have seen great attack moves. During the game versus Portugal I counted about 10 attacks in first half and 14 attacks in second half. It was probably the best game against Portugal we have played in the last 3 years, even though we conceded 14 goals, this was mainly due to the areas mentioned above.
We also had players attending this level of competition for the first time and the lack of experience showed when we played against very competitive teams. Our team had 4 players 1st year Juniors, 5 players 2nd year Juniors and 1 last year Juniors.
Carlos comments:
Considering we showed a big gap to the other 6 countries in fitness, reaction capacity and speed I am very pleased with players attitude on and off the rink. At times we played very good hockey but we could not be consistent all game.
We need to motivate the players at this age to do home work to improve fitness to ensure we can be more competitive. Therefore I will write a plan to be carried out at National Training sessions, club sessions and at home.
Finally I would like to say that International organisations must be more professional as we started the competition with dimensions behind the goals 1 meter shorter in each end which was corrected for day 2. We need to ensure that a member of the CERH checks the sports centre prior to a competition?
The refereeing was inconsistent in every game and I feel we suffered from poor decisions. We need to have the best referees for all competition games and ensure that they all have international experience or ensure these referees double ref a game with a very experienced referee.
European Juniors Championships
The final Squad has been announced to participate in the European Junior Championship 2008 which takes place in Herringen, Germany from Monday 29th September until Saturday 4th October.
- 1 Kristoff White - Herne Bay
- 2 Joe Singleton - Herne Bay
- 3 Jim Seal-Driver - Bury
- 4 Sam Kay - Academico Da Feira (Captain)
- 5 Edward Armstrong - Manchester
- 6 Jon Taylor - Kings Lynn
- 7 Joel De Figueiredo - Academica De Espinho
- 8 Owen Stewart - Middlesboro (Vice-Captain)
- 9 Grant Bradfield - Norwich
- 10 Jamie Williamson - Academico Da Feira
- Head Coach - Carlos Amaral
- Manager - Val Conroy
- Assistant Manager - Martin
- Doctor - Mike Armstrong