Goalkeepers
Alam Reuben
Hunt Peter
Stearn Matt

Outfield Players
Brady Kieran
Carter Michael
Conroy Liam
Constable Matt
Johnson Oliver
Neville James
Norris Sam
Norton Sam
Smith William
Taylor Josh

Project 2010 was a first for English Roller Hockey, a pilot scheme, a structure for the development for the future of International Players for England. I appreciate that there has been a lot of commitment, both time and financial, to get to where we are today. This idea was originally brought up during a meeting between me and our President, Keith Allen, during one of our trips abroad. Keith immediately gave his full support to this idea and has continued to do so throughout the last 4 years. I must also add that we would not be in the position we are today without the full financial support and time commitment of the Parents and the training commitment of the Players. As a Roller Hockey family we have all headed for the same goal, which is the European Championship 2010 and this is why we aim to have a very competitive team in the Competition.

Progress report to date
The first stages of our preparation have involved regular National Training, Summer and Christmas Camps and numerous trips abroad. National Training has allowed players to raise fitness levels, improve individual techniques and become more tactically aware. The camps have always, and will always remain a source of intense training, raising players’ standards and exposing them to continual daily training like that of a professional player. Finally our trips abroad have been invaluable, full sized rinks, unknown opposition and an extremely high level of competition combined with off rink time often away from parents allowing team bonding.

Preparation Plan Dates
I would like to make you all aware that when I put together Preparation Plan dates I do not consider the financial side, the plan is put together based on what I feel is needed to achieve a competitive team. Although I understand the financial side of the decision, I am disappointed that we are unable to make the July trip, which is what I would call the “Golden step” of the preparation. I am therefore in the process of rearranging the Preparation Plan Dates to try to achieve a similar level of preparation.

Premier League
The implementation of Premier League games was to challenge and push players against the best England has to offer. The first half of the season has been used, not only to assess individual players in a variety of positions, but combinations of players and how they have gelled in a variety of situations. In my mind results have always been secondary to team performances and the way players have responded to a variety of systems they have had to play. Systems ranging from half rink pressure to full rink pressure, three and four man carousel attack, ball possession when attacking and a counter attack. As we move into the second half of the season, although I will still rotate players, I will be more selective and use a combination of players that may be on rink for longer periods of time than others, as I start to use a more consistent system of play that I am likely to use during the Championships.

Issues of concern

Fitness: Some players’ fitness is still a huge concern for me, personal fitness training is essential in addition to normal Roller Hockey training and Joe Wheatley will be contacting you shortly with a fitness plan for the run up to the Championships.
National Training: This season I have allocated two sessions at National Training as part of the preparation, however attendance at National Training has been somewhat inconsistent, with players making at times only one of the two sessions set aside and in some cases neither.
Maturity: Some players are still showing a lack of maturity at times, demonstrating often their inability to follow simple tactical instructions and openly showing frustration during games and training sessions. This in turn can have a profound effect of team moral and spirit. Players must learn to toughen up mentally and cope with difficult situations better.
Commitment: While financial constraints have affected my preparation plan with the removal of the July trip, it is now even more important that 100% commitment is applied with everything we do. Players must enter the rink every time with the passion and desire worthy of an International Sportsman, whether it is a Premier League game, National Training or Club training. Anything less is unacceptable and will be brought to my attention. Players must also give full commitment at the highest level training at their club each week.
Attitude: One area that is not acceptable to me is when a player is not interested to listen to Arthur, Joe or myself. I will not select a player who will not listen as this will affect the team. Players must give us the courtesy of eye contact when being spoken to and take on board what is being said. The player must go on the rink and prove he has listened and understood what has been said, otherwise he will find it hard to make the final squad.

Final stage preparation
Final stage of preparation will focus mainly on tactics and fitness and will commence at this months National Training followed closely by the trip to Sesimbra. The tactics will always be worked on the rink with us in National Training and Premier League games as well as extra sessions and Summer Camp. The fitness levels required will only be achieved if fitness training is carried out during your personal time as well as training with us, as this has to be done on a daily basis. I can tell the players that have already started their fitness preparation, but I am a bit concerned that some of you are not doing enough fitness training off the rink.

I will be issuing preparation plan dates to you all in the coming week. The preparation will intensify as the competition gets closer and in order to ensure that we have a very competitive team in the European Championship, from now on Arthur, Joe and I will be firmer with you both on and off the rink. All this information will be considered when I announce the final squad.

Conclusion
With little over five months to go an immense amount of hard work lies ahead, total commitment and dedication is a must. I always judge players on a daily basis and players must prove at all times, that they are capable in all areas of the game. Therefore, all players have the same opportunity to be in the Final Squad, whether they played last year or not, provided that you have the right attitude and keep improving the fitness and tactical levels as instructed.

I hope you take my comments on board in a constructive manner, because in my concept of a Coach I want the best team, which does not always mean the best individuals. Should any of you wish to discuss your individual position within the squad at this present time or if you would like me to expand on any of these points please feel free to email me.

Yours in Sport

Carlos Amaral
Under 17’s Head Coach

Last month in St. Omer, France 27th to 31st October the Ladies played in the European Championship Seniors and although they lost all the games there was a big improvement from 2007 Championship in results as well as the team, which was much more competitive.

Our team was the youngest one in the competition with two 15 year old players, with the oldest player being 23 years old.
This gives us a good future as all these girls still have a lot of room for improvement and more years of playing at this level.

The team played throughout the competition defending individually restricted but on some occasions changing to pressuring the player with the ball and half way line.

I was very pleased with the attitude of the girls on and off the rink, showing their commitment to play for England and we gained even more respect from other countries.

One complaint about this competition was the standard of the referees, who penalised England quite a lot.
Coaches from all the countries made the same comments and the CERH has to be more careful when selecting their referees for this level of Roller Hockey as it is not good for our sport.

England 0 Spain 7 (Half-Time 0-3)
England started the competition against the World Champions

It was not easy playing our first game in the European Championships against Spain, however England played for large periods of the game with good individual defence restricted pressuring the player with the ball.

Basic mistakes due to lack of concentration and reaction cost us at least 4 of the goals.

Although we had the first 2 shots in the game and missed a penalty in the second half the team needs to improve their confidence when attacking.players need to move off the ball more to create pass lines and be more aggressive in the front of the goal as we had good long shots but no there was no player coming in for rebound.

England were more competitive in this game than in previous games against the Spanish which meant that their coach to played their starting line up for the whole of the first half, showing respect to England. Now we are look forward to playing Germany the 2007 European Champions.

This competition is very hard considering we have to play 4 countries Spain, Portugal, France and Germany who between themselves have won the last European Championship Competitions.

Our main objective will be to beat Switzerland to finish 5th however I am expecting to see our team raise their confidence levels every day and to be more competitive in their next matches.

England 0 Germany 6 (Half-Time 0-3)

After first game against the World Champions we then played the European Champions

Photo Gordon Morrison

The team improved from the first game in both confidence and reaction.
Players were very focused the whole game on restricted defence pressuring the player with the ball.

Ball possession when attacking was a great improvement from first game which resulted in more structured attacks and goal scoring opportunities.

The final result reflects some bad refereeing decisions from the French referee considering we conceded 4 goals from penalties and direct free hits of which only one I would agree with referee?s decision. My opinion was corroborated by the other referee after the game.

As I said previously this is not an easy competition and today we play Portugal another top country in the world. However I am still confident that the team will continue to improve everyday.

England 1 Portugal 13 (Half-Time 0-7)

This was the worst performance from the team as we were not concentrated enough.
Poor defending caused a lot of problems to our counter attack and we just could not keep possession of the ball, which is very important at any level of Roller Hockey.
This was a game that we would need to remember but only so we could learn from the mistakes.

England 1 France 10 (Half Time 1-3)
After the Portugal game, the girls showed great attitude and we had one the greatest performances in the first half from an England Ladies team against one the best teams in the competition. Their concentration in defence along with good counter attacking opportunities provided us with the move that was finished by Beth.
In the second half France showed that they had a very strong team and were fitter and a faster reaction capacity. They stepped up a gear and took the game to us and made their opportunities count as they scored seven goals.

England 2 Switzerland 4 (Half-time 2-2)
The last game of the competition to decide 5th / 6th places.
We started the game very well taking the lead twice at 1-0 and 2-1, but the more experienced Swiss team made the difference.

England started with excellent individual defence which caused a lot of problems for the Swiss team.
England deserved to be 2 goals up at half time considering the scoring opportunities created as well as they way we had maintained ball possession and had more shots on target.

In the second half our game was not as good as the first half due to tiredness, however we still dominated the game but with a lucky 3rd goal for the Swiss the onus was on us to score. The team pressured full rink to try and get the goal back.

The job done by the girls was excellent and they deserved to win this game, but it went against us.

Carlos Amaral

Girls from all over the country have attended the NRHA’s National Training weekends in Peterborough and Carlos Amaral NRHA’s National Performance Director has made his final selection.
Good luck to all the members in the final team selection participating in Ladies Seniors European Championship which takes place in St. Omer (France) 27th – 31st October 2009.

England 1 Colombia 8 (Half Time 1-4)
Tiredness was the main reason for this result after four great performances previously.
England started the game showing a distinct lack of energy against a very fit Colombian Team. Our defence did not apply the pressure on the man with the ball as it was more diving than pressuring which created a lot of space in the centre of our area allowing the Colombian players to attack our goal and score.
During both halves the English players did not move off the ball, and displayed no reaction in both defence and attack which became even worse when Colombia pressured us in the half rink. Some of the goals conceded were due to lack of reaction from our players.
Players understood we had a bad day but they are now mentally prepared for tomorrow’s game against USA for 11 or 12 place, which as mentioned in yesterday’s report is already an improvement from the last World’s.
Goal scorer: Owen Stewart.

Carlos Amaral

England achieved their first objective by winning this game positioning us to play for 9th – 12th place, so we still have a lot of work to be done.

We started the game very well, pressuring the Australian team in their own area and mid way through the first half we were 4-0 ahead.
To give the players some rest. I decided to rotate all the team but we then lost some consistency in our game both in attack and defence.
At half time I told the players to go back and forget the result as we need to get back our consistency.

In the second half, the team gave a very good performance both in defence and attack, creating lots of goal scoring opportunities. At times our team play was brilliant and one of our goals was one of the best I have seen from an English Team. The ball was played by all 4 players using the carousel and finished off in style at the far post.

England have now already surpassed their performance 2 years ago in Chile were we finished in 13th place. Our objective now is to beat Colombia today so we can play for 9th or 10th place.

Goal Scorers: Owen Stewart (4 goals), Sergio Hutson (2 goals), Jon Taylor (2 goals) & Grant Bradfield (2 goals)

Carlos Amaral

I will start my report from the end of the match, as the referees (Argentinean and French) had a bad night with an obviously different criteria for each team, penalising England all the time. We finished the game with five blue cards but it must be noted that none of which were straight blue cards, but always due to a second yellow. All outfield players received yellow cards, however when the same situations presented themselves from the Italian team, the referees didn’t make the same decisions, I remember a couple of times that the Italian players hooked the skates of the English players, which in the rules is a straight blue card, along with pushing our players against barriers without seeing any yellow cards. The referees were definitely showing bias towards the home team.

Let’s forget the referee’s and concentrate on our team performance.
We started the game defending man to man restricted, pressuring the man with the ball. This meant that Italy had to pass the ball to the sides and we could stop them taking long shots from a central area. Our defensive system worked so well that the Italians only had their first real shot on goal after five minutes. England were brave and had good ball possession in attack. At one point we had the ball possession for over two minutes with the Italians pressuring full rink as they needed to score nineteen goals to finish first in the group. Italy finally managed to score their first goal with one minute left on the clock. In that remaining minute we managed to hit the Italian goal post.

The second half was a refereeing nightmare as any tackle made by us was always awarded a yellow card. At one point we had four players on blue cards at the same time all after receiving second yellow cards. The attitude of the team considering the circumstances was brilliant and they managed to keep a high level of concentration playing well in defence and exploring more counter attacks.
We played two different ways in defence changing from man to man restricted pressuring the man with the ball, over to pressuring the man with the ball and the man who created the pass line. Italy had a lot of problems playing their carousel because of these tactics and their two goals come from a couple of good moves whilst we had a lot of players on blue cards.

I am very pleased with overall team performance, as in this game we proved that we now have a system implemented in our teams so it doesn’t matter who is on the rink, the team will still perform the same.

Our next game will be tomorrow against Australia who finished 4th in Group C. We are now concentrating on winning this game as this way we will be playing for 9th – 12th place, which is already a better position than last year’s World Championships.

The most important thing is that England is gaining so much respect in the world. One member of the CIRH who was on the time keepers table congratulated me for the excellent team performance as well as my patience with the referee’s decisions.
At the end of the match I shook hands with the referees, just saying I was disappointed with their obvious agenda.

Carlos Amaral

England controlled the first half with a good man to man defence and we scored the only goal of the half from a very good attacking move although the team were not playing well in attack.
The players always seemed to be trying to score from every attack move, which I was not happy about. A time out was called so we could talk to the players and remind them that ball possession was very important. We finished the first half in control of the game but still not playing the way I had asked them to do, which allowed South Africa a couple of scoring opportunities.

At half time I told the players we were not playing consistently enough in attack and that we would need to be patient when in possession of the ball.
I also asked the players to pressure the South African team, half rink.

The players responded very well having a great second half pressuring the South African as I had asked which in turn meant that they couldn’t organise their attack and forced South Africa to make mistakes. This then created openings for us for very good counter attacks from which we scored our second half goals.
Our ball possession increased during this half and it was nice to watch the quality of the game shown by our players.

This result was a good improvement from 2 years ago in Chile when we only just beat them 4-3 in very tight and hard game.

Goal scorers: Owen Stewart (2), Jon Taylor, Sergio Hutson & Tom White

Today we play Italy, one the best teams in this competition.
It will be a very hard game us, with both Italy and Chile playing for 1st place and which will probably be decided on goal difference.

Other results in our Group:

Italy 14 South Africa 0
Chile 3 Italy 3

Carlos Amaral

The first 15 minutes against one the best teams in this Championship was very good, with man to man restricted pressuring the man with the ball working very well.
Chile scored one goal but we reacted very well and we scored from a very good counter attack.
The score line of 1-1 with only 5 minutes remaining in the first half was well deserved by our team, but then in the last 5 minutes we conceded 6 goals !!!!!!
During this period the team lost complete control of the game, which at this level must not be allowed to happen.

The team talk at half time was to try and understand what happened and to ensure that the players started the second half again with the attitude shown in first 15 minutes of the match.

In the second half the team played consistent hockey in defence and created good counter attacks.
Chile only managed to score with 3 minutes remaining with a dubiously awarded penalty.
Then with only 20 seconds left we conceded 2 more goals.

This game was a lesson for our players. They have to understand that they must concentrate for the whole game, the team has to be prepared to suffer and to solve the problems without panicking.

Finally I would like to say that although for 80% of the game we were very competitive I was disappointed that we were so naive for the other 20%.

Goal Scorer: Sam Kay

Today we play South Africa which is an important game to define positions in the group stage.

Carlos Amaral

England Under 20 Team:

1- Sam Cayley (Peterborough)
2- Tom White (Herne Bay)
3- Peter Marshall (Farnham)
4- Sam Kay (Middlesbrough) Captain
5- Rupert Charles (Halifax)
6- Jon Taylor (Kings Lynn)
7- Sergio Hutson (Peterborough)
8- Owen Stewart (Middlesbrough) Vice-Captain
9- Grant Bradfield (Norwich)
10- Jamie Williamson (HBU)

Head Coach – Carlos Amaral
Manager – Val Conroy
Assistant Manager – Martin Conroy

The competition starts today 27th September and will finish on Saturday 3rd October.

17 countries are taking part in this championship with a late entrance from Uruguay. The teams are split in the following 4 groups:
Group A: Spain, Colombia, Germany, India & Uruguay
Group B: Portugal, Switzerland, Angola & Holland
Group C: Argentina, France, USA & Australia
Group D: Chile, Italy, ENGLAND & South Africa

We arrived in Bassano on Friday 25th and we checked in to our hotel around 21:30 hours local time (Italy is 1 hour ahead).
The next morning we received a new calendar with few changes and giving us few hours notice to play our first game on Saturday versus Italy at 20:00 hours instead of Sunday versus Chile at 16:30 hours as stated in official calendar sent to all countries a week ago. Also, the organisers made a mistake putting Uruguay in to group D instead Group A as per CIRH rules.
Therefore we decided to write a protest to present in the delegates meeting on Saturday 17:00 hours, this protest was read in English and Spanish and was accepted by all the delegates as well as CIRH committee. We are now back as we should be and our first game is today Sunday at 16:30 hours against Chile who are currently seeded 4th in the world.

The spirit of the team looks good off the rink and now we are looking forward to the competition although we have a hard group stage playing seeded 4 Chile and 5 Italy as well as South Africa with most of the players are Portuguese.

Carlos Amaral

(Half Time 0-0)

England beat Switzerland for the first time and Portugal won the Championship

As in the group stage, both teams played with an organised defence in the first half.

With England starting the game pressuring the half way line which caused some upset to Switzerland as they expected us to play restricted pressuring only the man with the ball.

In our attack we played carousel with 3 or 4 men and  tried to use counter attacks.

At half time during our team talk I asked the team to keep 2 players in the Swiss area to upset their defence. Again the Swiss team didn’t expect our tactical change and we caused them a lot of problems. Playing two men at the back and two in attack instead of the carousel. This was a good decision as our team created so many goal opportunities many hitting the post and bar a number of times. The two goals scored were well deserved by the team for their efforts.

The team played well as a unit all game which was a big improvement from the previous game against Germany.

Goal scorers: Liam Conroy & William Smith

We played most of the competition with the tactic of man to man restricted pressuring the man with the ball, sometimes we pressured the half way line which we are looking to try more often if we can raise the fitness levels of our players. In attack our team showed we can now play in different ways causing problems to other teams. We had a few options in attack, three and four men carousel, keeping two players in the opposition’s area and good set up moves from free hits which we scored a couple of goals. One of the biggest overall improvement’s, was the team’s ability to change systems during the game.

England finished 7th for the 3rd year in the row, however the results have also improved as well as the team performance. We received a lot of positive feedback from other countries on how much we have improved over the last two years. Our team was the youngest team in the competition with 7 first year players (born in 1994) whilst other countries had at least 5 players in their last year. These teams will lose influential players for the next championship which I am hoping will give us an advantage next year when we hold the competition.

I am looking forward to next year’s championships, considering the fact that the U17’s team will now have some experience along with the talented players in the wings ready to replace those who have to move up to Juniors.

Carlos Amaral