Congratulations to the Spanish Ladies who are this year's World Champions
Reports:
Carlos comments:
I am very pleased that we achieved the objective of finishing in the top 8 in the world.
The girls had a great attitude on and off the rink which showed an improvement of their sports mentality. Our team had an average of 17 years old and compared to other teams we were the youngest team in this competition. At this stage the ladies are developing at the same time they are competing and although this puts less pressure on the results, finishing 8th place is the best position ever and will give us more motivation to progress our project for Ladies Seniors.
Regarding this competition we had always good first halves keeping the score very close even considering we played 4 out 5 of the games against the top 5 teams in the world; second halves we found it harder to keep the results down, due to fitness and reaction capacity.
I have returned from this competition highly motivated to carry on with Ladies Seniors 4 years project. I will be talking to the girls about working on a weekly plan to improve fitness and reaction capacity. This way we will be able to be more competitive with the top countries in the world, but our main objective is that we want to close the gap and achieve top 6 in the world.
England 0 France 8
Half time 0-1
We held a good defence in the first half against a very strong team.
The girls concentrated well and made it difficult for France to beat our zone system. We did not manage to counter attack as many times we would have liked to but this was due to a well organised French team that was very quick to recover their defence.
The second half was similar to other games, the team became tired and our reaction capacity was our biggest problem.
Carlos comments:
I knew France would be one of the hardest team to play as they are very physical as well as very fit. However the girls had an impressive first half and did not give up all game, the final result reflects the difference that good team preparation makes.
Becca Lawrence comments:
I was looking forward to playing France all tournament. I thought we all played really well and put 100% in. I also really enjoyed playing in my first world championship.
Anna Russell comments:
Our defence made it extremely hard for the French and we fought them off well, however their physical strength and good team preparation before the championship led to the final score.
England 0 Germany 8
Half time 0-2
We had a very good performance during the first half against European Champions.
The team concentrated well in defence and made very good counter attacks.
During the second half we still made good counter attacks but our lack of fitness, as well as a very mature German team, made a difference. The result does not reflect our performance considering the number of counter attacks we had and we hit the bar/posts 4 times.
Carlos comments:
Our last game the team showed the improvement made during the week. I am very pleased with the improvement of the girls during the week regarding confidence. I am now working on a project to develop this team for the next 4 years. Well done girls for the 8th place, the best position ever for England Ladies.
Beth Cook comments:
Our first half was good with good defence and lots of chances. Second half did not start so well but managed to pick it up by the end.
Rachel Joy comments:
A good performance in the first half by all. The continuous pressure and Germany's superior fitness caused us to suffer during the second half but none of us gave up.
Dave Fothergill's comments:
The girls had a good attitude keeping the heads up all way through the games. We found it hard to be competitive during all of the game due to fitness and reaction time. We need to work on our fitness and I hope all the girls can commit to the fitness programme given by Carlos, to be carried out on weekly basis.
President's comments:
It was a privilege to be part of the "Team" in Japan. All the ladies gave their all on the rink and behaved impeccably off it. They were superb ambassadors for English Roller Hockey and should all be very proud of their achievement.
England 0 Spain 12
Half Time 0-8
Our first objective was achieved playing in the quarter-finals against this year's second seed. We played a diamond formation all game relying on counter attacks. However Spain pressured us very well all first half creating a lot of problems for our defence and attack organisations.
Our team talk at half time worked well as the team did not concede any goals in the first 8 minutes the second half. The England players never put their heads down which showed a big improvement on attitude.
Because of this we had good opportunities to score in the second half with 2 great efforts on goal.
Carlos comments:
I am very pleased with the player's attitude keeping their heads up all game. We knew this would be a very hard game but it was great to see such a young team showing a lot of potential for the future which was commented on by the spanish coaches after the game.
We are the youngest team in this competition and we are still looking forward to playing tomorrow against the European Champions Germany.
Emily Sheppard comments: I think we played well and we just need to be fitter to move off ball more.
I am very pleased to be in the top 8 in the world. Even though we were losing we still kept our heads up.
Emma Russell comments: It is nice to be in the quarter-finals and if we work as well as a team tomorrow as we did today we can all be proud of each other.
The England Ladies made history by qualifying for a top 8 position in the World Championships
England 5 South Africa 1Half Time 2-1
England started the game with a diamond formation controlling possession in the first ten minutes of the game.
Although we scored a goal in the first ten minutes, Carlos called a time-out and changed the system to man to man restricted because South Africa were beginning to find space to shoot from distance.
England then played this sytem for the remainder of the game creating good counter attacks and the result reflects our domination of possession.
Carlos comments:
I am very pleased with the result which put us into the quarter final and I hope that this will be a big motivation for the future of Ladies Roller Hockey in England. Now the next games will be hard but we have the satisfaction of achieving a minimum of 8th place, which is the best for many years.
Congratulations to the girls.
Kirsty Ingham comments:
Fantastic result with everyone in the team contributing to achieve for the first time a quarter final place.
Emily Rawlinson comments:
I am very pleased to play for England for the first time even more so because it is a World Championship.
Today`s result was great because it has put us into the quarter finals.
England 0 Chile 9
Half time 0-4
Due to the Juniors European Championship finishing on Saturday 4th October Carlos Amaral and the President were not able to attend our first game against the world champions Chile.
The team started this game in a diamond defence, our ladies have adopted this system to break their opponents counter attacks. In addition, this style of play created two excellent goal scoring opportunities one of which was a penalty missed.
Considering that we have a very young team this was a very hard game to start the competition with. Therefore the weaknesses shown in this game such as too much ball watching and reaction capacity will be improved during the competition.
We are now looking forward to our game tomorrow, by then, Carlos will have arrived and will be on the bench.
Dave Fothergill:
The team started the game well but the speed of our reactions to certain situations let us down giving the opportunity for Chile to score.
Lucy Rivers:
We tried very hard at the beginning of the game to create counter attacks. At half time the 4-0 down score was not too bad against the World Championships. Despite the score we never gave up and battled to the end.
Ruth Russell:
We played well together and although the score against us was slowly increasing, we still worked hard to the final whistle.
Ladies World Championships
I have selected the following players to be part of the Final Squad for the Ladies World Championships
to be held in Yuri - Honjo, Japan during 5th October until 11th October.
- 1 - Emma Russell - Plymouth
- 2 - Kirsty Ingham - Bury
- 3 - Anna Russell - Plymouth
- 4 - Beth Cook - Middlesboro
- 5 - Emily Rawlinson - Cambridge
- 6 - Ruth Russell - Plymouth
- 7 - Emily Sheppard - HBU
- 8 - Lucy Rivers - Bury
- 9 - Rebecca Lawrence - HBU
- 10 - Rachel Joy - Bury
- Head Coach - Carlos Amaral
- Manager - Dave Fothergill
- President - Keith Allen
-
Schedule and Results
- Chile 9 - 0 South Africa
- Japan 1 - 11 France
- Argentina 32 - 0 Macau
- Spain 13 - 1 India Monday 6th October 2008
- Macau 0 - 31 Germany
- USA 10 - 1 India
- Chile 9 - 0 England
- Portugal 3 - 1 Japan Tuesday 7th October 2008
- England 5 - 1 South Africa
- Spain 7 - 1 USA
- Germany 0 - 0 Argentina
- France 4 - 0 Portugal Thursday 9th October 2008
- Chile 1 - 2 USA
- Argentina 3 - 2 France
- India 0 - 4 Japan
- South Africa 5 - 0 Macau
- Spain 12 - 0 England
- Portugal 3 - 2 Germany Friday 10th October 2008
- Macau 0 - 22 Japan
- India 5 - 0 South Africa
- Chile 2 - 1 Germany
- England 0 - 8 France
- USA 1 - 9 Portugal
- Spain 2 - 1 Argentina Saturday 11th October 2008
- India 7 - 0 Macau
- South Africa 0 - 3 Japan
- Germany 8 - 0 England
- Chile 1 - 7 France
- USA 1 - 8 Argentina
- Portugal 1 - 3 Spain Final Positions
- Spain
- Portugal
- Argentina
- USA
- France
- Chile
- Germany
- England
- India
- Japan
- South Africa
- Macau
Sunday 5th October 2008