What a fantastic day for English Roller Hockey! We have made history!

France 2 England 2 (Half Time 1-1)

There was a very intense and nervous start to this game as France were pushing for a win but England never lost their composure. We were good in defence and the half time result of 1-1 was a true reflection of the game.

At half time we spoke to the players and tried to get them to relax and relieve the tension they were feeling. We reinforced the belief that they could win the game and play for top four and also instructed them to attack more in the last third of the rink.

The second half began with an England shot reflecting off the post from a set up move within the first 3 seconds and the half continued to be a very even game. The England team were very brave always blocking the ball with their bodies. The French team scored a brilliant individual goal, however our team listened to the instruction given to them at half time to attack the ball in the last third of the rink and this is where our equaliser came from.

Our team showed they had maturity and discipline within the game and this ensured they never lost their concentration or formation. This was also shown as our team played the last 5 minutes of the game on 9 team faults.

Goal Scorers

Will Smith
Liam Conroy

We now look forward to our semi final match against Portugal at 19:00 hrs

England 5 Andorra 3 (Half Time 2 – 2)

What an exciting game!

England continued their performance from the second half of the match against Spain by defending vigorously and ensuring a consistent and organised man to man restricted, with pressure on the man with the ball.

In the first half we conceded a goal within the first 2 minutes as we did not apply enough pressure on the man with the ball, as instructed in the team talk, but We corrected this immediately. In attack the team was always consistent and used different ways to attack the goal either with the long shot, which gave us our first goal, or with the man in front of the goal looking for a far post finish. Our second goal came from a nice diagonal pass attack move into a far post finish. In the first half we had to chase the game as we were one goal down twice and we achieved a well deserved 2-2 taking us into half time.

In the changing rooms at half time we spoke to the team to make the players believe they are stronger and definitely capable of winning the game. We motivated them to be brave as they could win their game and asked the players to bring the ball to the last third of the rink to score from the far post.

A confident start in the second half meant we dominated the game so it was no surprise to be 3-2 up. Then a doubtful penalty put us 3-3 with 5 minutes to go and this is where England kept their confidence and didn’t waiver in their belief and scored two goals as well as saving a direct free hit to finish the game to 5-3.

Carlos Amaral