Join us for a day of Ladies Roller Hockey! All ages and abilities welcome Sunday 1st August 9am – 5pm Bushfields Sports Centre, Peterborough. A fun filled friendly tournament where all ages and abilities are welcome. Chances to win a pamper hamper, food hamper, experience vouchers and many more prizes. All proceeds from the day will go towards developing Ladies Roller Hockey in England. £15 entry fee. For more details, speak to National Coaching Director, Carlos Amaral or Kirsty Ingham, England Ladies Senior Team Captain. To guarantee your place, fill out a booking form and return to Lucy Rawlinson, England Ladies Manager.

Milne Rachel (Gk)
Parfitt Kasia (Gk)
Repman Anna (Gk)

Baker Francesca
Barrow Hannah
Cook Beth
Gillett Emma
Holland Louise
Morley Abbie
Patton Jodi
Parry Wilcocks Zoe
Rawlinson Emily
Russell Anna
Sheppard Emily
Stevenson Chloe

All players announced on the reduced squad have to pay £100 deposit as part of commitment to participate in the championships. Any player not selected for the final squad will have the £100 deposit refunded. Any players withdrawn will lose the deposit.
Make cheque payable to NRHA and bring with you this weekend.

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 LADIES SENIORS SQUAD
Rachel Joy – Bury
Emma Russell – Plymouth
Ruth Russell – Plymouth
Anna Russell – Plymouth
Lucy Rivers – Bury
Kirsty Ingham – Bury
Emily Rawlinson – Bury
Beth Cook – Middlesbrough
Chloe Stevenson – Middlesbrough
Emily Sheppard – HBU

Head Coach – Carlos Amaral
Manager – Dave Fothergill
Assistant Manager – Jan Cook

I am very pleased with the achievement of our team in this competition beating Germany 3-2 for 3rd places, considering we lost 6-3 in the group stages earlier, this result was an excellent reaction from our team.

On Saturday morning we played Spain, the eventual winners for 4th time in the row, and we lost 8-0.
I decided to use a rotation system in this game to ensure the players would not be too tired for our evening game.
Spain scored 2 goals in the first 5 minutes and although we defended well, we couldn’t make many counter attacks. Our main problem was the lack of actual ball possession as well as a lot of inexperience from some of the newer players.

After the game against Spain we returned to the hotel to eat and then for a rest. We left for the sports centre so that we had a time for tactical meeting on how to play Germany and assessing the mistakes that cost us the 6 goals against Spain. The girls were well motivated for this game as they knew this would be a fantastic opportunity to make history for our sport.

The team started on the rink very confidently with individual restricted pressure on the player with the ball, mainly the German captain, and this worked very well with our team scoring 3 goals before Germany then scored 1 goal just before half time (3-1).

The second half was a brilliant performance from the girls, showing a lot of passion to keep the score line in their favour and to combat a lot pressure that German team put upon us.

The final 3-2 result was well deserved by the team, as we prepared for this game very well after discussing what went wrong in our first encounter.

I am very proud of the girls regarding this 3rd place which I hope can motivate English roller hockey more to improve, even more specially the girls. Also, I would like to say that this team were excellent off the rink. We have made the right decision to take the team 3 days earlier to Feira for preparation having 5 sessions and 2 friendly games which helped to put the tactics in place and to build up team spirit off the rink.
Goal Scorers: Emma Gillett (2 goals) and Beth Cook

Carlos Amaral

Full report to follow.

England 1 Spain 6 (Half-Time 0-4)
A very nervous start by the team in the very first game of the competition. We didn’t have too much ball possession and although we defended well and concentrated hard, Spain still scored 4 goals in the first half. At half time I calmed the players down and asked them to enjoy the game as well as to carry on defending as well as we had done in the first half. We needed to have more ball possession as well as needing to skate off the ball more to create 2 passing lines. A great second half against last year champions saw us score our only goal and we had few goal opportunities.
Goal Scorer: Chloe Stevenson

England 1 Portugal 6 (Half Time 1-3)
Another good performance against one the top teams in the world. In the first half we had Portugal under control. The result reflects the lack of concentration in certain moments of the game which cost us the goals. The second half was very similar to first half, with Portugal finding it hard to break down our defence system although they had a lot of ball possession.
Goal Scorer: Beth Cook

England 3 Germany 6 (Half time 2-3)
The second game of the day and a great response from the team regarding fitness. After the Portugal game I was expecting a team showing tiredness but after being 3-0 down to Germany, we came back strongly to 2-3 and we were the best team. This game was very strange because 2 of the 6 goals conceded were own goals, one scored with the skates and one from a deflection. Just one goal from Germany was scored from a set move. Of our 3 goals, one was our number 3 move and the other 2 were from moves that I asked the players to create from our time out team talk.
Goal Scorer: Beth Cook (3 goals)

Carlos Amaral

The the England team will leave for Portugal on Sunday evening and will stay in Feira (Portugal) until Wednesday morning for training and final preparations. We have planned training sessions and two friendly games one against Gulpilhares ladies senior team and the other against their Under 19’s team. On Wednesday 2nd September we will depart for Mealhada to participate in the European Ladies U19 Championships on 3rd, 4th and 5th September.

The objectives for the stay in Feira are to train on a rink 40×20 metres, as well as to improve tactics and team spirit. Also we will have two competitive games which will give the team a very good warm
up for the competition.

The team will return to England on Sunday morning 6th September.

Final Squad:
1 – Rachel Milne
2 – Jodi Patton
3 – Anna Russell
4 – Beth Cook
5 – Emily Rawlinson
6 – Chloe Stevenson
7 – Louise Holland
8 – Francesca Baker
9 – Emma Gillett
10 – Kasia Parfitt

Head Coach – Carlos Amaral
Manager – Dave Fothergill
Assistant Manager – Mandy Stevenson

10.30am U 11’s
Presentation of trophy, medals and U 11 Player of the Year.

11.30am U 15’s Peterborough v Bury
Presentation of trophy, medals and U 15 Player of the Year.

12.30pm Ladies North v South
Presentation of trophy and Lady Player of the Year.

13.30pm U 17’s Ely v Bury
Presentation of trophy, medals and U 17 Player of the Year.

14.30pm U 20’s Herne Bay v HBU
Presentation of trophy, medals and U 20 Player of the Year.

15.30pm U 13’s Kings Lynn v HBU
Presentation of trophy, medals and U 13 Player of the Year.

16.45pm Seniors HBU v Bury
Presentation of trophy, medals and Henry Crystall Senior Player of the Year.

As well as the Cups of the above events all League Trophies and medals plus the Referee of the Year will be presented.