All,

thanks to those who made it to training yesterday. I hear the session was a testing one for you in terms of the material covered, but I can imagine that you all put everything on the line for your places in this team.

TRAINING SQUAD

Josh Walkden-Smith (capt.)
Michael Regan
Liam Woods (capt.)
Lucas Davies
Daniel Evans
Nick Haworth
Ryan Tarascas
Sam Green
Timmy T
Thomas Kingdom
Leo Tall
Luke Ryan
Jake Sykes
Kei Matsumoto
William Caldwell
Tom Martin-Hall
Paddy Hart
George Wallis-Ryder
Dom Dathan
Josh Kyme
Josh Bailey
Sam Whelan
Michael Dixon
Sam Stott
Declan Iles
George Tait

This squad of 27 has been picked based on your performances in the three training sessions we have held this season. We have looked for a blend of athleticism, knowledge, determination and talent which we feel will bring us success come this Summer at Worlds. For all of those who have not been selected, commiserations and I'd like to thank you for making this squad selection a hassle. We aimed to select a squad of 30, but have settled on 27 as we feel that other players would have been added gratuitously at this stage of the season and we hope now that you can go away and change our minds in the coming weeks. We will add players to the squad if we feel that their performances are up to standard - this squad is not closed yet.

Josh and Liam have been selected as Captains based on their energy, drive and commitment to the cause. We all believe they will be fantastic leaders on and off the pitch and we hope that you will agree as the season goes on.

We will announce the final squad for WUGC 2008 on the 30th April, 3 days after Open Tour 2.

SEASON DATES

We have produced a provisional calendar of dates we expect you all to commit to.

1/2 March (JUNIOR INDOOR NATIONALS)

22/23 March (MANCHESTER)

5/6 April (OPEN TOUR 1)

19/20 April

26/27 April (OPEN TOUR 2)

30 April – ANNOUNCE VANCOUVER SQUAD

10/11 May (OPEN TOUR 3)

17/18 May

14/15 June (TBC – exams)

5/6 July (TBA - JUNIOR OUTDOOR NATIONALS)

18 - 20 July

2-9 August (WUGC 2008)

If there are any problems with these dates, let me know ASAP. We cannot afford to miss training sessions with people missing out and not telling us. One of the attributes we were looking for is organisation, professionalism and commitment, and we need to see more of these from now on. We are aiming to meet roughly once a month to train outside of Tour events. Like we have already announced, any player representing a team in the A Tour (Top 16) will be exempt from playing for GB Juniors until Tour 3, where the final squad will play. We have reached this decision to allow players the best opportunity to develop, whether that be stepping up and making a difference in the B Tour or winning Tours in the A Tour.

COSTS

As things stand, the costs break down like this.

£400 will cover your food, accomodation, player fee and team fee at Worlds. This does not cover your flight arrangements. We will discuss as a team on this e-Group how we best feel flights must be handled. At the moment, flights are around the £700 mark to Vancouver.
We are asking players to meet in Seattle in the morning of the 1st August, to hopefully play a warm up game against North American opposition. We will get a train over to Vancouver on the 2nd (this costs $25, so £12/13 quid) - flights to Seattle are also cheaper than Vancouver!

Several players have asked if they can arrange their own travel arrangements as they want to travel around for a few days. This is perfectly acceptable, but I implore you to let me know what your travel arrangements are so we can be accountable for you. You will also not be excused from being in Seattle on the 1st. We will let you know further financial arrangements as we know them after we have liased with the UKUA about our options.

COACHING STRUCTURE

We have worked out our coaching structure for the season coming. We will announce Offence and Defence lines in the next few weeks, probably after our first training session. These are not concrete, but we will be trying to stick to them as much as possible so our offence is putting goals in every possession and our defence is getting us blocks.

I will be the Offence coach this year, while Liam will be focusing on Defence. Penny will be floating between the two and giving his input as the year goes on, but will help Liam more this year.

That's about it. Congratulations to those who have been selected thus far, and commisserations if you were not successful - you have further opportunities to realise your place in this squad if you want it enough. Please get in touch if you have any questions,

Dale Walker, Liam Kelly and Mark Penny