England Men's Squad USA Tour May 2010
Coach Dave Elwood Reports...
The England Men’s Senior team returned from our whistle stop tour of the States battered bruised but very satisfied with our weekends work.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon ‘ash’ permitting and travelled from Philadelphia down to Baltimore where we would base ourselves. After a brief acclimatisation session at Johns Hopkins Homewood field, we got our heads down for the night to prepare for our 1st game on Friday night.
We travelled to Annapolis to play the Chesapeake Bayhawks on Friday and came up against a fantastic Team which contained 4 of the current USA Team and read like a who’s who of lacrosse, Kyle Dixon, Danny Glading, Bugg’s Combes, John Christmas, Joe Cinosky, Ray Megill, Michael Evans and Chris Garrity in goal but most importantly Alex Smith at Face off.
The 1st Qtr went well as the score stood at 4-3 to the Bayhawks and we had a great look at the goal to even the score, but shot it wide. The Bayhawks scored the next goal and then Smith won the next 10 face offs, and starved us of ball and the Bayhawks pulled away. We never got back into the game but we never gave up and the effort of the players was fantastic as we gave everything. The final score ran out at 26 – 3 and showed how face off is one of the biggest factors in lacrosse.
On Saturday the team had to get up then travel 2 hours back to Philadelphia to play again only 15 hours after the Bayhawk’s game against a very good team who support the Headstrong foundation whose luminous green laces the England team have agreed to wear during the World championships.
GMH are one of the premier amateur teams in the US, including many ex MLL players & the current US goalie Doc Dougherty and they support the work of the Head strong Foundation which was formed after the death of Hofstra player Nick Collelouri from Cancer.
At ¾ time the score stood at 4 – 4, and then the sheer guts of this team shone through and we won the last quarter 6 nil, and ran out worthy winners 10 - 4.
On Sunday morning the Team travelled back to Annapolis to play last year’s beaten MLL finalists the Denver Outlaws, who beat the Bayhawks on Saturday afternoon, and also rank 4 US players amongst their number. But those who expected a rout were left scratching their heads. In a fantastic game the Outlaws squeezed home 7 – 6 and had to hold on for the last minute as the England Team pressured them all over the field to get the ball back.
The team learned many lessons and achieved all our objectives and returned home on Sunday night satisfied, having been re routed over the volcano to avoid the cloud or was I just hallucinating that from lack of sleep!!
Click here to view highlights from the Denver Outlaws game
