2011 European Championship Diary (Part One)

Sat 1st Oct; Woke to a sunny morning in Nottwil. The accommodation and venue are all on one site, surrounded by rolling hills and a lake. The whole complex is pretty high-tech if a bit sterile, but we’re here to do a job! Lots of waiting around at this stage of the tournament, today is Saturday and our first game isn’t until Monday. I tend to base my days around my meals and fill the gaps with anything to kill the time. We checked out all our chairs/kit today and had a friendly game with Finland during our allotted training session. A clinical performance led to a comfortable win, ensuring a good mood within the team. It’s been a fairly light day, but I’m still tired by the end of it, so I take the opportunity to get an early night.

Sun 2nd Oct; It’s been another day of waiting for us really. Had a good VA (video analysis)/Tactical meeting ahead of the France game tomorrow. We’re happy with our game plan and just want to get on the court and execute now! In the evening we had the opening ceremony, which is always a bit of a chore. As athletes, you just want to get started. Luckily the ceremony was quite short and afterwards, the hosts, Switzerland registered a 49-32 victory over Ireland in the inaugural game. The main headline today has been “classification”. Without going into too much detail, rules changes have meant that several high profile players have been re-classified, causing considerable upheaval to a couple of teams. GB remain relatively unscathed and continue to focus on the job in hand. I’m not apprehensive yet but the nerves will come, they always do! Far from being a bad thing, this is just energy if used correctly. I’ve felt like this plenty of times before and I will again.

Mon 3rd Oct; At last game day is here! We’ve done all our preparation and it’s now time to put it out on court. Our opponents today are new guys, France who are not to be under estimated. They have two extremely dominant high-pointers in Nicolas Courtault (3.5) and Ryadh Sallem (3.0), supported by several capable mid and low-pointers. We started flat, not making the most of our passing and letting the French settle. We also failed to score last, turning over a crucial play to see us trailing by three after the first quarter. We fell away more in the second and were ten adrift by half. We played far better rugby in the third and fourth. A great showing from our three 2.5’s helped us peg back their lead to six but France rallied to take the game 57-46. We were obviously massively disappointed but we’re still in control of our destiny. Onwards and upwards to our next game, hosts, Switzerland!

Tue 4th Oct; The team was a bit shell-shocked after the France game and there was a slight sense of injustice over the “out-classing” of their star player, “Nicolas Courtault”. This meant that after our game he was ruled ineligible to play, as he was too functional. France would now be a far weaker side, but our result would still stand. This has put us at a considerable disadvantage in the pool and could damage our chances of making the semi-finals.

Anyway, these things are for people higher up the sport to wrangle over. As players we just need to concentrate on the game ahead. The Swiss are a well-drilled side who play to a tried and tested system. Our game was close in the first quarter, but GB were always in control and gradually turned the screw. We had the Swiss out-gunned for pace and this translated into turnovers either side of the half. By the middle of the third we had it won and despite the home crowd’s best efforts to buoy their team, the margin only widened. The game finished 46-35 in our favour and we were back on track!

Wed 5th Oct; Playing Ireland today. These guys (and girls) are a good unit but they haven’t really got any “game-breakers”. We have all round pace over them, which makes it easier for us to isolate them and cover them one on one. We started well against them and just kept pulling away. GB were always favourites’ for this one and that was reflected in the 53-31 score line.

The other big news today was that Switzerland managed to upset Poland, taking an absolute thriller 43-42. This has done us a huge favour as if all games go to form; it’s a straight shoot-out between Poland and us on Friday for second place in the pool and a semi-final berth. (If the Swiss hadn’t of beat Poland, a three-way tie in our pool would have left us needing an eight-goal win over the Poles just to advance on goal difference).

Even though this is great news, it’s all on the assumption that we beat Germany tomorrow and that is certainly no foregone conclusion!

Thu 6th Oct; Germany have had their tournament devastated by the re-classification of their 3.0, “Maik Baumann” to a 3.5. This has seen them go from being one of the favourites’, to hanging onto their 2012 qualification chances by a thread!

A clinical first half performance saw us notch up a seven-goal lead, but then the Germans showed great spirit to fight back. The brought themselves all the way back to within two, giving us a hell of a fright in the process. Fortunately GB rode the storm and a 42-38 victory effectively ended Germany’s hopes of appearing at London next year.

In a cruel twist, Germany successfully appealed Baumann’s classification and he was returned to a class 3.0 this afternoon. Sadly this will have come too late to resurrect their hopes of making next year’s Paralympics. You have to wonder how fair the current system is and how it can be made fairer in future?

Fri 7th Oct; We took the court first thing to face Poland in a “winner takes all” clash. The Poles switched between their four 2’s line and 3, 2, 2, 1, while we stuck with our 3.5, 2, 2, 0.5 line of Phipps, Ash, myself and Coggan throughout the game. Poland frustrated us, picking and rolling very well on offence and defending the key very well, making it extremely hard to score. We took a slight lead in the first half but silly errors brought it back to a goal for goal game in the third quarter. Our fitness finally began to show and we took control in the fourth. The Poles had to abandon their key defence to try and chase the game and we took advantage of this to pile on the pressure. In the end we won 50-45, booking our place in the semi-finals.

Poland had pushed us all the way, a fantastic effort with a team of purely quadriplegic athletes! I was absolutely shattered and limped back to the bench after the handshake to be rewarded with… A drug test! As inconvenient as testing can be; I’d far rather see an anti-doping officer at every tournament I went to, than find out other athletes were cheating within my sport. I’m also confident that Wheelchair Rugby is 100% clean!

Lastly today, a lacklustre game decided the winners of pool A, as undefeated Belgium and Sweden faced off. Belgium won 49-44, setting up a semi-final between themselves and GB, while France will take on Sweden.

That’s all from my first installment of this European Championships diary. Check back soon for my summary of the crossovers and the climax of this fantastic tournament. Thanks for reading!

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