Guildford High become School Challenge Cup champions

Guildford High produced a remarkable comeback to recover from 3-5 down to beat reigning holders Berkhamsted 10-5 in the School Challenge Cup final.

In a repeat of the National Schools Championship final back in March, and played in similarly wet conditions, the Surrey school avenged the defeat suffered that day to run out deserved winners.

On a day of extremely high-level competition, Guildford had edged past Moreton Hall 6-3 in their quarter-final, before holding off a late Caterham comeback to win their semi-final match up 10-9.

Berkhamsted, meanwhile, also had a tense start to the day squeezing past St Mary’s Calne 10-9 in a back-and-forth contest that could have gone either way, after which they producing a convincing performance against Wycombe Abbey in the semi-final to win 12-4.

The weather had largely held out for most of the day; however, by the time the final came around, the heavens opened making playing conditions difficult but both teams still managed to put on a highly entertaining game to keep everyone engrossed.

Berkhamsted took the initiative early in the final, holding a 4-3 lead at half-time and extending their lead early in the second looked like they were in the driving seat and on the way to repeating last year’s success.

However, over the longer 40-minute matches, Guildford had the opportunity to respond and slowly but surely they began to take control.

Camille Barton led the charge for her side, finishing the game with seven goals with a number of drives to goal and executing a number deadly finishes from her free position opportunities.

As the game wore on, Guildford only became stronger and were able to shut out Berkhamsted for the majority of the second period, while they took their chances when in possession to earn the Challenge Cup title.

Caterham had earlier put the disappointment of missing out on the final behind them by coming through against Wycombe Abbey in the 3rd place play off winning 4-3 and earning themselves bronze medals.

Quarter-Finals
Berkhamsted 10 - 9 St Mary’s Calne
Caterham 9 - 8 Bedford Girls
Lady Eleanor Holles 6 - 9 Wycombe Abbey
Guildford High 6 - 3 Moreton Hall

Semi-Finals
Berkhamsted 12 - 4 Wycombe Abbey
Guildford High 10 - 9 Caterham

 7/8 Play Off
Moreton Hall 10 - 9 St Mary’s Calne

5/6 Play Off
Lady Eleanor Holles 11 - 9 Bedford Girls

3rd Place Play Off
Caterham 4 - 3 Wycombe Abbey

Final
Berkhamsted 5 - 10 Guildford High

Officiating Surveys for Active and Non-Active Officials Now Available to Complete

England Lacrosse has put together two surveys for active and non-active lacrosse officials to give their thoughts and opinions about what it’s like to be an England Lacrosse official.

The first survey is for active officials; those officials who hold a valid qualification, while the second is for non-active officials; those officials who have stepped away from refereeing/umpiring for whatever reason.

The surveys are open until Friday 20th December and all England Lacrosse officials are encouraged to complete the survey relevant to themselves.

Click the buttons below to access each survey.

If you have any questions regarding the surveys, please contact Ryan Griffiths at r.griffiths@englandlacrosse.co.uk

*This survey has now closed. Many thanks to everyone who completed the survey.*

Join the Train with Team England women's coaching clinic

The England Women's Senior Performance squad are back in Manchester for their latest squad weekend and will be hosting a Train with Team England coaching clinic on Saturday 16 November in Manchester.

The coaching day is aimed at girls aged 8-18, based around a fun day of lacrosse; developing your skills, learning new tactics and getting the chance to meet and talk with England Senior Internationals about helping to improve your game.

The coaching clinic will run from 9am-12noon at Withington Girls’ School and helps to raise funds for the women’s senior squad as they continue their preparations leading to the 2021 World Cup.

Cost: £30 - All proceeds go to the Women’s squad minus a payment system admin fee.

To sign up, select the Team England Coaching Day Event, login to your England Lacrosse Membership account, and complete the sign up process.

Interview with England Men's Box Lacrosse Assistant Coach, Andy Downing

England Lacrosse sat down with England Men’s Indoor (Box) Lacrosse Coach, Andy Downing, not long after he’d stepped off the plane from Canada after a hugely successful 2019 World Men’s Indoor Lacrosse Championships.

England finished fourth, equalling their best finish at a World Championships, and narrowly missed out on a medal, losing by three goals to the USA in the bronze medal game.

This was Andy’s first major tournament as an England coach but as a player, he has had a glittering career, representing the England men’s field team at one European Championships as well as the England men’s box team at two World Championships.

Domestically, Andy has won two NEMLA Senior Flags and a NEMLA Premiership winners medal for Heaton Mersey Lacrosse Club based in Stockport, Manchester.

As well as turning his hand to coaching recently, he is also chairman of Northern Box Lacrosse, an organisation that aims to “bring Box Lacrosse to the masses” with the short term aim of building a full-sized purpose built venue in the South Manchester area.

He was keen to talk about all things box lacrosse, including the fourth-place finish, his experience as a player turned coach, and the future of box lacrosse in England more generally.

Finishing fourth in the end, you must have come home really pleased and really proud of the efforts over the two weeks (at the 2019 World Men’s Indoor Lacrosse Championships)?

Yeah, everyone is. We surprised ourselves and superceded everything we were aiming for. We thought we could do, we could finish fourth, we could get there but the reality of it was just a bit unsure. When we tested the Israelis, and lost in overtime, we were all looking at each other thinking we can do this.

Before that point, you’d never been together as a full entire group so ultimately you didn’t really know where you stood, did you?

Exactly. We played the Aussies in the warm-up week a few days beforehand and they beat us. We were a bit disorganised. It was the first time the team had played together. So, we made a few alterations at the next practice and simplified it. Everyone was a bit excited, a bit nervous. And then we played the Germans in the main arena and the first half we just blew them away. It was good to see it was all working but we still weren’t a “60-minute team”, as it were. We couldn’t do the full game, and the Germans came back.

What was it like getting in that arena? Did it feel completely different to anything you’d been training in before? Did it “ramp it up” a little bit?

Yeah. Well, yeah, going from Tennis Courts up in Disley (Cheshire) to playing in proper venues in front of crowds as well it does make a difference. But the lads all stepped up. It was just being in a professional environment and the coaching staff and the team management helped generate that in the changing room and everyone just stepped up. Gone were the days of the cold winter’s evenings up in Disley or trekking down south to play in a small barn, everything just fell into place. It was good!

Had you and the team set targets before you flew out to Canada?

Yeah, so our expectations before were that we just needed to stay in the blue division. But the flip side of it was: if we do get relegated then it’s going to take us on a different path back here. But going back into the blue division, I think it was the Finland game that solidified our place in the blue division, and we absolutely battered them. It was then that we thought, “yeah, we do belong here”.

Did you feel you’d probably got to that different level from the teams that were playing in the lower groups? You were ready to step it up?

Talking to the Canadian and the USA coaches, we kinda summed up that the Canadians are a second faster, and a second in this game is huge, and the USA are maybe half a second faster, and then the Israelis were the same pecking order as us. In the important games, the crunch games, no matter how many mistakes we were making, we could kinda limit and control our own game and push for the win and not worry about the opposition. Whereas you play Canada and the Iroquois and they’re just, they’re that much quicker and it shows. But going down the pecking order, we had the upper-hand, we were the one second faster team so those split decisions were a lot easier because we were used to playing at a faster pace.

And having played in the two World Championships before this one and now moving to the other side of things, to the coaching side of the game, could you feel a difference? Did it feel a bit strange to you?

It’s hard because all the preparation we’d been doing back home and Walt Christianson, the Head Coach, had been coming over and then he’d been leaving me and saying “right, you need to work on this, you need to work on these things, run these kind of drills, run these kinds of sets. I wanna see people work on this”. We were feeding all of this back to Walt and it’s just a different level: going from a player thinking “oh, I’ll just turn up and do my warm-up and put my kit on”, there’s so much more detail that you have to go into as a coach that I didn’t anticipate at this level and it’s been an absolute eye-opener! It’s been good though.

Having someone like Walt there to direct you and manage over things, is that sort of experience invaluable?

All the coaching staff, Dan (Perreault) and Jordan (Sundher), they just know the game so well that nothing’s new to them. They describe it as a chess game: they’ve always got a counter move and they’re always thinking a few moves ahead. And they just know this so we’re all, the English guys, we’re all thinking immediately whereas they’ve already thought about it and they’re steps ahead and they just filter it into the system, dead calm, dead collected and it really does work. It’s such an advantage having good quality coaching staff.

Looking forward now, how do you build on what you have just done?

Well, while we were out there, Eliot Pugh and myself, we had a few meetings with Jane (Powell, National Talent & Performance Manager) and Mark (Coups, Chief Executive Officer) from England Lacrosse who are very encouraging and want to help and start bringing venues in. All the conversations we had, it all boiled down to “we can do this, we’ve got the coaching staff, we’ve got the time, we can invest it here”, but it all boils down to having a purposeful venue and multiple purposeful venues up and down the UK. That’s something we’re going to start looking closely into.

Ultimately, is it about giving more people the opportunity to play box lacrosse and have a go and to have the facilities to do that.

That’s absolutely right. Look what we’ve achieved playing on tennis courts and under-sized rinks! As you know, we have to compete with the field schedules but we’re going to start implementing more box specific times in-season so when the pitches aren’t ready or its raining or snowing and the games get called off it’ll be structured. We know that sort of thing’s going to happen so why not have a box league in November, December, January kind of time.

I guess what you’ll be looking for next is for there to be more young people up and down the country getting in to box lacrosse and being given the opportunity to give it a go at a junior level?

So what we’re talking about with Southern Box Lacrosse is that because the junior programme suffers down there, I think there’s only Spencer with a junior team at the moment, with the smaller numbers that are needed for box and it’s inside and a lot quicker. The juniors, they play shorter games, this is over in Canada, and they don’t have set positions so everyone does all the positions. You go out of what they call the “back door”, start in defence, move up into transition, and then play attack and come off so everyone gets a feel but they grow up in that system. That’s something we’re going to look at down south.

Down the line, what do you see in five years’ time on a national level for the programme? I know it’s been talked about through the team and coaching staff that the goal is to try and produce a home grown full team. Is that what you see in the next five years, 10 years?

So, we actively want those passport-holding players who are non-residents to come over and engage and spread their knowledge and be part of our culture, attend all the practices leading up to Championships and be more involved over here. But it’s hard when, off the back of the Championships, three of our Canadian players have gone onto rosters for professional teams but it is something we’re strongly thinking about and to have home grown players in five years. If you think about the under 14s, in four/five years they’ll be ready so if that’s something we can invest in now then it’s something that we do want to invest in.

Listen to the whole interview in the new “Lacrosse Talk” podcast below:

Watch highlights of all England’s games at the Worlds below:

BUCS Match of the Week: Nottingham v Durham Women

Our BUCS Match of the Week this week takes us to Nottingham for what has the makings of an early season classic between two of the favourites for success in the women’s competition this year.

Although only Week 2 for both teams, the contest may go a long way to deciding the winners of the Premier 1 North division.

And the talent on show on Wednesday promises to be of the highest standard with plenty of international talent all over the pitch in the East Midlands. 

Durham University women’s programme has been the benchmark for university lacrosse in recent years winning five straight BUCS Championship titles dating back to 2015 and currently hold a formidable unbeaten run tallying 75 BUCS games.

In fact, the Palatinates were on a four-year winning run until October last year when Wednesday’s opponents University of Nottingham came so close to ending the streak with an 11-11 draw in this corresponding fixture last year.

And a year on, Nottingham will now be looking to go one better this year, winning their opening fixture comfortably 20-2 away at Loughborough - but are coming up against a stacked line up who also got an opening day win, 15-6 versus Edinburgh. 

Ones to Watch

The ‘ones to watch’ section for both teams could be endless with so much ability on the field but looking at Durham it’s hard to look beyond their captains this year, Tilly Shires and Georgie Southorn.

Shires flourished as one of the young guns in the England squad at the Women’s European Championship this summer, scoring nine goals including one in the final, looking comfortable in a highly competitive midfield string and is sure to be a focal point in the middle of things for Durham.

Similarly, Southorn shone on the international stage this summer leading the England attack at the Under 19 World Championship where she finished as team top point scorer with 21 (16G, 5A) and has now been promoted to the England Senior Performance squad for 2019/20.

Durham also have another three members of the U19 World Championship squad, in goalie Livy Schellekens, attackers Cece Green and Lucy Devine plus England U23 members Maisy Ledsham and Emma Brown.

In addition to their England contingent, Durham also have a strong overseas group including lightning quick attacker Maggie McClain who won the 2018 DIII title with Gettysburg College, and defender Teagan Mockus from Merrimack after winning the 2019 NE10 Championship.

On the opposite side of things, it will be teammates turned rivals within the Under 19 squad as three of the team also line up for the University of Nottingham.

Under 19 captain from the summer, Bella Bowater will be a central figure in the midfield, effective around the draw circle and winning loose balls to set up her team in attack she will be important if Nottingham are to play well.

Similarly, Livy D’Castro, who recorded 8GB and 9CT at the U19 Worlds and was awarded MVP from last week’s game at Loughborough, will have her skills tested in defence along with England U23 squad member Anya Devon-Berry who picked up the tournament MVP award at the 2019 National Schools Championship and joins in her freshers year.

Fiona Fletcher, another U19 squad member joins as a first year to further add to the growing international honours list in addition to strong midfielder Laura Beaman and lively attacker Izzy Yates, who is sure to pose Durham problems, both of which are in the England Senior Performance squad.

The match gets underway at 17:00 at Nottingham’s Jubilee Sports Centre and match highlights will be available on Thursday along with the match report of all the action from Nottingham.