Concluding coverage on GB Elite matches from Rob Liscoe, GB Womens Squad manager

Rob Liscoe reports from the front line

Day 5 matches were scheduled as against Columbia and New Zealand. The match against Columbia was a vital one to win since they were ranked 9th at the last World Championships, with GB just one place above them. If sufficient teams enter any given competition, being 8th puts you in the top division. Being 9th doesn't and means you will have more games to play to have a stab at medals.

Match 7 - GB Elite v Columbia

From what we had seen of their other games it looked like the Columbian girls were going to give us a run for our money. And so it proved.....

The teams were very evenly matched indeed, but for the whole match I guess GB were in their half more than they were in ours. Baggy obviously has a target painted on her, for a few minutes into the game she caught a close-quarters shot full in the face and was on a different planet for quite a while after the impact. Fortunately there was no real damage to either her or her kit, but unfortunately a penalty was called. Not because she illegally stopped the puck, but because the reflex punch she loosed off made contact with the Columbian who just fired at her. She doesn't remember this at all, or the 2 minutes she spent in the sin-bin, but the match video reveals it all too clearly. The ref said he would have dismissed her but for the fact she was unconcious at the time he called the penalty. At least she wasn't wheelchaired off this time.

Anyway - penalty. Our firewoman George defended - if anyone can keep a penalty out she can. But not this time. The teams battled it out in long rallies between goals with half time seeing the Columbians 2-1 up. The second half saw second half saw the Columbians commit a penalty foul too, and this was rapidly converted to draw level again. Again long rallies, a few fouls, people on both teams sin-binned and eventually another goal.....to the Columbians! The final few minutes saw more battling with the puck reaching the tin at both ends from time to time, but with neither team having the inertia to push it home, or conversely, both teams having excellent defence to keep it out.

And the game ended like that. A very well fought game which despite losing 3-2, all our girls enjoyed.

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 2-3 COLUMBIA

Match 8: GB Elite v New Zealand

The Kiwis had an easy day yesterday having played Moldova (not) and so were quite refreshed. Predictions that they were a weak team this year had already proved to be completely unfounded when, even with only 9 of them, they upset the favourites (Canada) by only losing 4-3 to them. After our result yesterday against the USA girls they must have been quite confident that they too were going to wipe the floor with us.

The GB girls didn't expect to win either, so the team tactics were changed to a much more defensive role. And did we make them work hard? We sure did. The back row played well, the front row played well. We even made a couple of breaks towards their gulley. And we knew we were upsetting them when they called the first time-out! At the end of the first half we stood at 4-0 down, and they were not happy.

Our girls were expecting a renewed onslaught into the 2nd half, but by now our rotational defence was getting easier and the Kiwis were starting to get ragged, possibly because they thought we should have been a push-over. Their attacks were coming just as frequently but were getting weaker and less effective. Given a third and fourth 'halfs' we could have turned the game around against what really should have been a much superior team. As it was, they only managed to score another 2 goals to win 6-0.

Strange - no amount of consolation could convince them that they had actually won the game, and any blatant congratulations were met with shell-shocked faces and blank stares. GB was delighted with their loss at ONLY 6-0 and were at great pains to tell the Kiwis what a good close match it had been. Hee hee!

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 0-6 NEW ZEALAND

Match 9: GB Elite vs Netherlands

More matches that we didn't really expect to win, but a couple that we had a reasonable chance of surprising the opposition in. Our first was against the Dutch, the current European Champions. We've already played them a couple of times this year and whilst we haven't beaten them yet, the gap has been getting smaller and smaller. We know how they play and we know HOW to beat them, it's just practice that's needed prior to toppling them from their perch at the European Championships in Italy next year.

A hard fought game ensued with the confident Dutch being very surprised at our strength in defence, and really having to work hard to get round us. But get round us they did, but not often and not en masse. A careless error from a GB free puck 5m short of the Dutch gulley led to a rapid break from them just before half time, and the Dutch going just 2-0 up into the break.

A timekeeper didn't help us much in the 2nd half by allowing Dutch players penalised for 2 mins in the bin back in over a minute early! The sin-bin was well used in this game with the Dutch being the main foulers (as they usually are) with only 4 of their team left in the water on at least two occasions. But our girls didn't seem to have the attacking strength to capitalise on this. Our free pucks taken close to the gulley were all deflected to the corners and there just wasn't the energy or cohesion there to push the puck just that little bit further in the desired direction. Nonetheless the Dutch still had to work exceptionally hard to score any more goals. They managed it just once more to finish 3-0 up. Once again GB was happy with the result, closer than last time we played them. New Zealand expected a better result and were definitely not happy bunnies. Wait till next year!

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 0-3 NETHERLANDS

Match 10: GB Elite vs South Africa

South Africa beat the Dutch yesterday by quite a bit, so GB didn't expect to win this either given our result against the Dutch. The SA girls are traditionally a strong experienced team, and so they still are. They started scoring from the off and continued to the final whistle. 5-0 by half time and 13-0 by the end. Our girls visibly started to fade in the second half, being well fatigued by the two previous hard games probably made it's mark here.

Baggy achieved her personal goal by not getting sin-binned at all in this game (a first for this tournament for her, strange - I've only ever known her get binned once before in 10 years of her playing!. Mhairi continues to sit out of the games with a severely dented knee, caused not by octopush but by the Canadian Women's Coach standing on it whilst she was asleep!! I understand she has numerous plans to make him pay for the injury several times over. Team beers, a large bottle of champagne, and a full massage from the Canadian Physio have all been mentioned.

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 0-13 SOUTH AFRICA

Match 11: GB Elite vs France

On Thursday, the elite girls' last game in the round robin was to be against France. We haven't played France since the European Championships last July but we knew the Dutch narrowly beat them earlier in the week, so the girls were quite hopeful of a good result although they didn't expect to win.

The first half was a closely fought half with the French going 1-0 up towards half time with some good rallies each way. This was looking better than they hoped. But what happened in the 2nd half? After a few minutes more the French scored again, and then kept scoring. Our girls heads dropped and had no real answer to the french attacks, with the final buzzer seeing the French win convincingly at 9-0.

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 0-9 FRANCE

This result didn't affect the seedings from the previous day, with GB Elite being placed 9th out of 12, narrowly missing out on playing in the quarter finals. (The top 8 teams play quarter-, semi-, and finals to establish final places. The bottom four teams play in play offs for the bottom four places, with 8th playing 12th and 9th playing 10th, and then the winners and the losers of those matches respectively playing each other).

9th - 12th place Playoff 1: GB Elite vs Moldova

GB was drawn against Moldova who still hadn't turned up, so the match was a foregone conclusion and we had a day off (typically the only day it has rained since we've been here).

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

9th and 10th place Playoff final: GB Elite vs Argentina

The Argentinians were down to just 6 players now (they only had 7 to start with) with one out due to an ankle injury, and we had beaten them well earlier in the week and fully expected to again, but with a bigger score. At the start of the game all of the action was kept to the Argentine half with just a couple of easily defended forays into the British half. GB went four up by half time. The GB goal became to get into double figures by full time. It was close - although the Argentinians had no real weight to any of their attacks, they were working very hard and very well in defence and the final score was 9-0 to GB.

Result: GREAT BRITAIN 9 - 0 ARGENTINA

FINAL PLACING OF GREAT BRITAIN: 9th

Thanks to all of you for your involvement and support for the GB Womens team over the last year or so. This is the last article before our return to the UK. I'm off for a week's holiday now!

Rob Liscoe