Rob Liscoe reports from the front line

Tournament report and commentary on GB Elite matches from Rob Liscoe, GB Womens Squad manager

The week of practice matches and training ended yesterday, and the Opening Ceremony took place in the evening. We were treated to a multi-cultural display of Canada's history, including Native Indian dances and songs, Cowboy sketches, and songs and dances representing Canada's historical links with the Spanish, the Chinese with Black Africans and with Break-dancing Yoofs. The latin contingent were boisterous as they usually are, and only the Dutch prevented their mexican waves going from one side of the hall and back again.

Match 1 - GB Elite v Canada

GB Womens Elite's first game was against the Tournament favourites - Canada. The Canadian girls appear to be very fast to the puck and they were certainly hungry for it and went 9-0 up at half time. Our girls never lost their heads though and managed to hold the game to 12-0 at full time with some excellent defensive play against a superior team. They even had the puck on the Canadian tin at one point, but just failed to have the impetus to carry it through.

Unfortunately we lost a key player towards the end of the game. Baggy (Sarah) stopped a certain gull with her knee, from only 12" away from the puck's launch site. No penalty was called and the puck was cleared, but Baggy had to be wheelchaired away from the sports centre, unable to stand or walk. She's walking today but with a bad limp. Good physio work will hopefully see her back in the water for later in the week.

Result: CANADA 12-0 GREAT BRITAIN

Match 2: GB Elite v Moldova

Their second game was a late evening match with Moldova. Moldova hadn't turned up in Canada by the morning and nothing had been heard from their representatives at all, but we still had to turn out a) in case they suddenly appeared, and b) so we didn't lose two points for a 'no-show' ourselves. So at the appointed time, there we were, all dressed up and no place to go. The game started on time with no teams in the water (why get wet with no opposition?) and promptly ended with GB the victors by default.

Result: GREAT BRITAIN (6)-(0) MOLDOVA

Match 3: GB Elite vs Australia

Sunday dawned cooler. We were drawn against the current World Champions, Australia. We lost 21-0 to them in 2000 on their home turf but our practice session with them made us think we could do better this time. The girls went down 6-0 by half time, and after the match the Oz coach said he thought that they were going to cream us in the 2nd half. Ha!ha! GB fought back really strongly and only conceded 2 more gulls and had the Aussies on the run on a few occasions. Apparently we surprised them by coming back so hard in the 2nd half. A good match, a good result and a vast improvement over our last match against them in 2000.

Result: AUSTRALIA 8-0 GREAT BRITAIN

Match 4: GB Elite vs Italy

The match against the Italian Women was by no means a foregone conclusion, but the girls were quietly confident that it wasn't going to cause them too much of a problem. And so it proved. Our girls always seem to take the first half of the game to wind themselves up to full speed, and the objective as a team was to keep a clean sheet and to get into double figures on goals scored. 5-0 by half time was a good indication, with the Italians rarely getting the puck into the GB half let alone anywhere near our gulley. A final score of 12-0 to GB was a satisfying result and picked the girls' spirits up no end after the defeats at the hands of the Canadians and Aussies.

There is a little intra-team rivalry here - who will score most goals, the front row or the back row? At the moment the back row appear to be winning.

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 12-0 ITALY

Match 5: GB Elite vs Argentina

Our first game this morning was against the Argentinian Women. Normally these are a relatively easy team to beat, but our girls were a little unsettled by the result of the Canada/Argentina game yesterday afternoon - Argentina lost that by 11gulls to nil. If you remember, GB girls lost to Canada by 12 gulls to nil. Could they be a match for us?? This was a bit of a crunch match because GB needed to beat them and two other teams to maintain their current World Ranking at No.8 . Italy was already despatched and Columbia and Argentina were the other two expected wins.

The girls put in a good warm-up session and prepared themselves mentally for the game, but they still didn't have Baggy on the back row. She did the warm-ups to test out her knee from Saturday's injury, but couldn't be included in the line-up until after the warm-ups and this was too late for the official team entry list.

The match started and our girls took a couple of minutes to put the first goal in, then the second, then the third. The second half saw the Argies try to make a strong comeback but the game was still mainly in their half and a penalty by them saw us to 4-0 up. The score was 5-0 by the final buzzer - a well-earned victory for GB but not quite as easy as they used to be, and they only had one substitute. It looks like Argentina may be a team to start worrying about at the next World Championships at Christchurch in 2004.

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 5-0 ARGENTINA

Match 6: GB Elite vs USA

This afternoons match was against the traditionally strong USA women. We'd watched them in the practice week and against some other teams and the general opinion was that they were strong here, but we could score against them and even might give them a run for their money.

How wrong. USA showed their strength from the word 'go' and pumped gull after gull past us. Half-time showed them 8-0 up. Our girls had no real response to their attacks and our back row went to *edited technical term*. It really looked as if we only had 2 or 3 GB players in the water at any one time. The only time we made any progress towards the US gulley was when the play went up the left-hand side, but that was only on three occasions.

The rout continued in the second half with Baggy (with a heavily strapped knee) and Fi doing some stalwart work in defence, but the team formation just crumbled further and the final score was a humiliating 16-0 to the US. We were beaten by a much better team. Even the American audience were overheard to say "I thought the Brits were supposed to quite a strong team...". Ah well, next time.......

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 0-16 USA

More to come soon,

Rob Liscoe