LA ROCHE SUR YON – FRANCE, 13-18 SEPTEMBER 2004
FROM CARLOS AMARAL:-
This competition involved 8 teams with 7 (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France & Holland) from “Group A” of the World rankings and England the only “Group B” team.
It was important to be at the event to represent England in the NRHA’s 100th year but our main objective was to continue to develop the team spirit and for the players to gain more confidence on the road to the World B Championships in Macau next month (October).
Playing Italy, Portugal and Spain in 4 days, our strategy was to rotate the players to give them all experience individually and within the team. Being able to assess their performance and identify actions to further develop the team for more equal contests was more important than playing only the group of players that had the best chance to keep the score down in these matches.
The bonus was to finish above last place, the team was getting better and gaining more confidence every day and in the last game we were superb beating Holland 5-2 (do not forget that Holland drew Spain 1-1) for 7th place.
We found it very hard to play against teams with a higher level of fitness in two areas, speed and reaction. In these terms, the gap between us and the professionals is, as one would expect, enormous and this is the reason for the scores against the top teams. With Germany and Holland the gap is not so great and we could challenge them in the way they have done to the top teams. Being able to keep up with the same speed as them for most of the game we could play man-to-man rather than the box/diamond used against the 3 top teams.
The good thing that came out of this competition was that all the players agree that we have to do a lot more in fitness to improve the areas mentioned above. This means that the players have to do plenty of home-work during the year to ensure that we can become a Group A team. This fitness work and the required level for each individual should now become an easier target due to the involvement of George Johnson the new England Seniors Physiotherapist and Fitness coach.
Our Manager Ron Barker has brought in George so that we can gain from his knowledge of professional sport, notably as physio of Gillingham Football Club. George already has some experience of roller hockey and he is quickly adapting his professional experience to the needs of the game. Although George has only been involved for the last 4 training sessions and the Europeans has been his first event with us, he has been a big input into the team spirit and the appreciation of fitness and the results are beginning to show.
More info:
Reporter: Aileen Barker
