After the disappointment of missing the Bernd Best, I arrived in Rheinsberg with only one thing on my mind, winning the Europa Cup with London! This is Europe’s premier club tournament and London would be going for a record fifth title.

Just two days of competition made for a very busy schedule with three games per team on the first day. We caught the Reds (Poland) napping with a blistering first quarter from which they never recovered (Final score 59-40). This left us free to give everybody a run out ahead of our potentially pool deciding clash with the Rebels (Germany). Towards the end of the first game I realised just how much an enforced break for injury or illness can affect your match fitness. A three game day certainly wasn’t going to be the ideal way to ease myself back into playing!

Back to back games meant we immediately faced off against the Rebels. A flat performance saw us unable to break down their strong key (There is a box at each end of the court between the cones known as a “key”. When a team defends this area, it’s called “keying”). You can argue that we were fatigued but we’ve played back to back before so the bottom line was that we simply weren’t good enough and the game ended in a 43-49 defeat. This definitely wasn’t the plan and now we needed to beat Koblenz to even make the semifinals. The game was pretty scrappy but we muddled through and ultimately won 51-37 with relative ease.

We’d have to be better on the last day if we were to have any chance of winning. Luckily coming second in the pool didn’t really impact us in terms of our opposition for the semi. It was a toss up between who was better out of the Griffins (Sweden) and the Roosters (Finland). As it turned out, we’d be facing the Griffins with the hugely dominant 3.5 “P-J Uhlmann” in their ranks. The game was close to begin with but we gradually neutralized Uhlmann’s threat and used our superior conditioning to open a small lead on the Swedes. A far better overall performance culminated in a 48-44 victory and a place in the final where an inevitable rematch with the Rebels beckoned.

All players in Wheelchair Rugby are awarded a point value known as a “classification” according to how much function they have. In Rugby, classifications run incrementally from 0.5 for the least amount of function to 3.5 for the most. Your classification does not change as you improve as a player, it is based solely on how much function you have, not how well you use it. Four players on court must not exceed 8 points.

In the final, the Rebels fielded their familiar start line of Bauman (3.0), Koseoglu (2.5), Leonard (2.0) and Schreiner (0.5). London ran with Morrison (2.5), Sehmi (2.5), myself (2.0) and Hussain (1.0). We carried a very different energy level and attitude into this game and shocked the Rebels by taking a three-goal lead from the first quarter. London denied the Rebels the time and space needed to employ their slow-down game and the Germans were left exposed against the speed and transition of London. By halftime the difference was six and by the end of the third it was ten. The last quarter went pretty much goal for goal as we protected our lead and as the final buzzer sounded, London recorded their fifth Europa Cup victory in the last six with a score line of 54 to 43.

This was a massive victory for us after a developmental season in 2009. The feeling of being back on top of Europe was amazing and as always, the adrenaline that goes with a big win is what you live for as an athlete. A full set of results along with a few pictures can be found at www.frontcourt.de Next time I’ll be reviewing GBWR’s latest “Powerplay” initiative, which took place in Cardiff this week and looking ahead to GB’s next big preparation tournament, the “Super Series” in Sydney, Australia! Lastly, good luck to Ross Morrison as he flies the GB flag by representing “Denver Harlequins” at this weekends U.S National Championships in Birmingham, Alabama.