Scottish quartet named in Great Britain women’s squad

22nd December 2011

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The Great Britain women’s hockey squads have been announced for the
forthcoming FIH Champions Trophy in Rosario, Argentina, and a four
nations preparation tournament in Cordoba. In total, 22
athletes will make the trip to South America in January including
all of those shortlisted for the FIH World All Stars Team of
2011.

The announcement of the two squads comes off the back a successful
5-0 series victory over fellow Olympic qualifiers the USA in San
Diego last week.

Departing for Cordoba on Saturday 14 January, Great Britain’s women
will take on the hosts Argentina, Commonwealth silver medallists
New Zealand and Korea in a four nation tournament from 18-22
January. Following the conclusion of that, the squad will
travel to Rosario ahead of the Champions Trophy, which runs from 28
January – 5 February.

Great Britain’s squad for the four nations tournament in Cordoba
features all five of the athletes shortlisted for the International
Hockey Federation’s World All Stars Team. Captain Kate Walsh
and her Reading clubmates Beth Storry, Helen Richardson and Alex
Danson recently featured alongside Leicester’s Crista Cullen in the
online vote, which also saw Head Coach Danny Kerry shortlisted for
the coach of the World All Stars Team.

Following her international debut in San Diego, EuroCanterbury’s
Dilly Newton has been selected for Cordoba but will not take part
in the Champions Trophy. Leicester’s Rebecca Herbert, Dundee
Wanderers’ Vikki Bunce and University of Birmingham’s Susie Gilbert
will also feature in Cordoba before returning home.

Speaking about the four nation tournament in Cordoba, Head Coach
Danny Kerry explained how he intends to use the tournament to
improve his squad: “I am looking forward to us playing some good
quality opposition and continuing to develop depth in our squad
across the tournament. We will face a good combination of
teams playing with a contrast of styles and this all helps in
further building experience across the squad.”

Four athletes not selected to play in Cordoba will be part of the
squad for the Champions Trophy in Rosario. The Leicester
pairing of Hannah Macleod and Chloe Rogers, Bowdon Hightown’s Sally
Walton and Clifton’s Georgie Twigg will make up four of the 18
athletes selected for the Champions Trophy, which is the last world
ranking event before the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Outlining his expectations of the Champions Trophy, Kerry said:
“We’ll use the Champions Trophy to thoroughly scout teams in
preparation for London 2012 and to continue to explore and develop
our own combinations. All of the teams will be in varying
states of preparation for 2012 and it will be interesting to see
where they are and the effect it has on the tournament.”

Great Britain qualified for the 2012 Champions Trophy after England
finished fifth in the 2011 edition, beating Australia to fifth
place in the Netherlands in July. For the Rosario tournament,
Great Britain has been drawn in Pool A alongside the new world
number one, the Netherlands, Olympic silver medallists China and
Japan, ranked ninth. Great Britain’s first assignment is
against Japan, before playing the Netherlands then China.

The 2012 Champions Trophy sees a deviation from the usual format
with a quarter final stage following the pool phase round robin.
After playing everyone in the pool once, Great Britain will
face one of the teams from Pool B in the quarter final. The
winners of each pool will face the side finishing bottom of the
other pool and sides finishing second will play those in third in
the other pool. The winners of these matches will progress to
the semi finals while the losers will contest fifth to eighth
places.

Commenting on the revised format, Kerry added: “The one-off match
nature of the quarter final format will be interesting to see in
action and makes predictions for the tournament difficult.
The current match schedule has Pool A games occurring in the
hottest part of the day of the Argentinean summer and I look
forward to seeing how we cope physically with that
challenge.”

Prior to departing for Argentina, all 22 athletes will take part in
a training camp near Barcelona from 4-8 January. Great
Britain will play three matches in Spain, the details of which are
still to be confirmed.

Following the Champions Trophy, Great Britain’s women will have two
major events in the UK to look forward to. The first, the
Olympic Test Event, takes place at the Olympic Park from 2-6 May
2012 and will feature Great Britain in action against other top
sides yet to be announced. After that, just seven weeks
before the start of the Olympic Games, British hockey fans will
have the chance to see the team in action at the Investec London
Cup. Running from 5-10 June 2012, the Investec London Cup
will be held in Chiswick, West London, at the University of
Westminster’s Quintin Hogg Memorial Park. Further details
about both events will be released in the New Year.

The Great Britain women’s hockey squads have been
announced for the forthcoming FIH Champions Trophy in Rosario,
Argentina, and a four nations preparation tournament in
Cordoba.

Scotland’s Laura Bartlett, Emily Maguire, Abi Walker and Vikki
Bunce are named in the 22 player squad. All four will travel
to Cordoba, with Bartlett, Maguire and Walker travelling to
Argentina for the Champions Trophy.

The announcement of the two squads comes off the back a
successful 5-0 series victory over fellow Olympic qualifiers the
USA in San Diego last week.

Departing for Cordoba on Saturday 14 January, Great Britain’s
women will take on the hosts Argentina, Commonwealth silver
medallists New Zealand and Korea in a four nation tournament from
18-22 January. Following the conclusion of that, the squad
will travel to Rosario ahead of the Champions Trophy, which runs
from 28 January – 5 February.

Four athletes not selected to play in Cordoba will be part of
the squad for the Champions Trophy in Rosario. The Leicester
pairing of Hannah Macleod and Chloe Rogers, Bowdon Hightown’s Sally
Walton and Clifton’s Georgie Twigg will make up four of the 18
athletes selected for the Champions Trophy, which is the last world
ranking event before the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Great Britain qualified for the 2012 Champions Trophy after
England finished fifth in the 2011 edition, beating Australia to
fifth place in the Netherlands in July. For the Rosario
tournament, Great Britain has been drawn in Pool A alongside the
new world number one, the Netherlands, Olympic silver medallists
China and Japan, ranked ninth. Great Britain’s first
assignment is against Japan, before playing the Netherlands then
China.

The winners of each pool will face the side finishing bottom of
the other pool and sides finishing second will play those in third
in the other pool. The winners of these matches will progress
to the semi finals while the losers will contest fifth to eighth
places.

Commenting on the revised format, Kerry added: “The one-off
match nature of the quarter final format will be interesting to see
in action and makes predictions for the tournament difficult.
The current match schedule has Pool A games occurring in the
hottest part of the day of the Argentinean summer and I look
forward to seeing how we cope physically with that challenge.”

Prior to departing for Argentina, all 22 athletes will take part
in a training camp near Barcelona from 4-8 January. Great
Britain will play three matches in Spain, the details of which are
still to be confirmed.

For full information on the GB squads, please visit the Great Britain website.

Scottish quartet named in Great Britain women’s squad

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