Great Britain U23s finish 7th in Youth World Cup
The Great Britain U23 team finished in 7th place in the annual
Monuta Youth World Cup tournament played on February 3rd-4th
in the Dutch town of Apeldoorn. They were competing against
five other national U23 teams and three Dutch sides –
the Netherlands East District U23s, the U21 team for the whole
of the Netherlands, and a local selection “Team Monuta”.
Britain secured a 6-6 draw in their first pool match against
traditional arch-rivals Germany, but then slipped to a 10-2
defeat against Belgium. However, Britain knew that they would
be able to qualify for the semi-finals and secure a top-four
placing if they could manage a good result against their final
pool opponent, Tem Monuta. Unfortunately this was not to be,
and Britain narrowly went down 3-2, leaving the team playing
for 5th-9th place.
Britain now had three more playoff matches against the 3rd,
4th and 5th place teams from the tournament’s other
pool, and got off to a good start against Portugal at the
early start time of 9:30am on the Saturday, winning 5-4. However,
they could not repeat this against the Czech Republic, whose
senior team are ranked third in the world, losing 5-2. Britain
then finished on a high note by defeating Hungary 5-4 to finish
in 7th place – lower than hoped, but at least finishing
higher than two other nations including one (Portugal) whose
senior team are ranked just higher than Britain.
The Netherlands U21 team won the tournament after defeating
their own East District U23 team 7-5 in the final, demonstrating
that Dutch dominance in the sport is just as prevalent at
the junior level as it is for seniors.
The focus for the British junior international sides now
switches to the highly promising Under 16 team who will compete
in the Korfball Youth Talent World Cup in March 2006. The
are working in partnership with the Applied Sports Science
subject area of the University of East London to ensure optimum
preparation, and have realistic hopes of mounting a challenge
to win the title.
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