Shepherd: Scotland’s women team is “buzzing”

Scotland women v Spain June 2016 3Scotland’s women’s team Head Coach Gordon Shepherd said his players are “buzzing” after pushing Olympic-bound Spain hard in four international challenges last week, and he hopes the squad can maintain the form shown in blistering Alicante heat during a Four Nations tournament in Dublin, which starts later this month, writes Nigel Duncan.

The coach is building towards the World League 2 clashes in Spain in February when Scotland play their hosts and Azerbaijan plus five other teams yet to qualify.

Shepherd revealed: “The girls were buzzing coming home from Spain. If we can compete with Spain at this stage as they prepare for the Olympics in Rio then, progressively, we should be in a better place to compete with them and other countries who qualify for the World League in February as we have more matches and a winter programme ahead of us.”

Shepherd said the players felt cheated out of Friday’s game when they lost 2-1, including a highly-controversial opening goal for the home side.

He added: “We’ve proved we can compete over the four games, two of them in heat of above 30C. We proved to be fitter than Spain and I have already sent a note to the support staff praising them for the work they have done with the girls. They are fitter and stronger squad than they have ever been and that work will continue during the summer and beyond.”

Shepherd has pin-pointed areas to work on during games following the four narrow defeats in Spain.

He added: “We created a number of opportunities which we did not convert and we will work on composure inside the circle. The more we play against teams of that quality the better we will get. Defensively, we have things to work on and small tweaks will make us a more difficult team to beat. However, the girls performed brilliantly against a top flight country.”

There is now real competition for places and he warned: “We did not put out our strongest team against Spain on Friday but they were all outstanding. We now have 11 forwards contesting six places and we also have competition in defence. People in form will get the nod.”

 

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