Welsh squads for the Interlands Tournament in Groningen on the 3rd and 4th of November and the Eurobowl final on the 9th have been announced.
Eurobowl Squad:
In addition to these 11, the following players are in the Groningen squad:
Dave Thomas (Cardiff Dragons), Kevin Jones (Manchester Warriors), Remco Broekhuis (Cardiff Dragons), Jack McNamara (Cardiff Dragons), Rebecca Lewis (Bec), Ruth Campbell and Katherine Smith (Cardiff City).
On the 8th September, the International Korfball Federation (IKF) updated its national ranking list which assesses the relative strength of the national teams of its 51 member nations. This took into account results in the European Bowl, the first tournament Wales have participated in that counts towards the ranking, and so Wales position of 24th represents their first appearance on the ranking list. They are just behind France (21st) and Luxembourg (23rd) who they finished ahead of in the Western Section of the Bowl, so they will hope to move further forward shortly. Slovakia, who are to face Wales in the Bowl final on November 9th, are ranked 17th.
The Netherlands remain top ahead of Belgium, while Chinese Taipei have moved ahead of the Czech Republic into 3rd. England take over Great Britain’s ranking of 6th place, Ireland are 29th, while Scotland share 30th position with Bulgaria and Romania.
The two Cardiff clubs got to test themselves against National League opposition last weekend, as Kent side Bearsted kindly travelled down to Wales for a couple of friendlies.
Their first game was against Cardiff City, and the first half was very tight, with City just having the edge. Ramzi and Susan combined brilliantly at one end, while Max and Zoe scored from long range at the other. In the second half though, City began to struggle to create shooting opportunities, and while their defence held firm Bearsted gradually pulled away to win 11-7.
Against Dragons, Bearsted had a more comfortable win as the home team were very rusty and too often chose the wrong options. By contrast, the teamwork of the younger visitors kept a regular threat going and they won 11-4.
The games showed that while the gap between Welsh clubs and the National League is far from unbridgeable, there’s plenty of scope for improvement in key factors like tactics, movement and teamwork in order to make the leap.
