National Knock Out Cup Schedule Released

National

Referee Development Report

Luis Rei continued his work with helping England with the development of their referees by coming to England again over the weekend of 5th/6th January.

On Saturday the 5th we attended an Under 13 Tournament at Letchworth where he assisted 8 referees by talking to them before the game, at half time and again after the game answering questions and offering advice.

One or two of the referees at this tournament were very new so it was particularly helpful to have Luis here to help.

From here we went to Bushfields, Peterborough where Peterborough played Letchworth in the National Premier League. Due to the fact that one of our Premier League referees could not do the game that he had been allocated for this weekend, Mike Richardson had to juggle the referees around and Luis very kindly stood in to referee this game at Peterborough with Smokey Robinson.

After this game we drove across to Soham and watched Bury play HBU in the Premier League game. Again Luis offered assistance to both Bruno Sosa and Stewart Henderson, who refereed this game.

On Sunday, we returned to Soham where there was a National Division 1 Tournament involving Ely, Sheffield, East Grinstead, Maidstone and HBU.

There were 6 referees here and again Luis was able to help with advice and answer questions.

Over the two days Luis was able to assess and assist 17 referees.

I hope that the referees found it useful and beneficial.

The next visit of Luis will be over the weekend of 2nd/3rd March.

We intend to hold a workshop on the Saturday, 2nd March offering both a classroom and a practical opportunity. The venue will be published when it has been confirmed.

On the Sunday, 3rd March, Luis will attend the ND1 Tournament at the Bay Arena, Herne Bay where he will be able to continue the work started on Sunday.

Keith Allen

Referee Meeting 21 October 2012 and Other Directives.

Further to our meeting and other discussions of clarifications that I have had with both Luis Rei and other prominent people in the world of refereeing, following are some points that have arisen :-

An Indirect free hit can be taken from where the ball rolls to in the defensive half only but the ball must be stationary when taken.

The restricting factor is that there is minimal advantage by taking the free hit from a different position to where the incident took place.

It also allows less stoppage time in the game and allows the game to flow.

In the attacking half it must be taken from the position indicated by the referee and again the ball must stationary.

NRHA Notice: Caps To Be Awarded

Sunday 16th December

The NRHA would like to re-introduce the awarding of Caps for every player representing their Country at both World and European International Championships.

This season we have competed in the following:

European U17 Championships in Ploughfragan, France.

European U20 Championships in St. Omer, France.

European Senior Men’s Championships in Paredes, Portugal.

World Ladies Championships in Recife, Brazil.

World Senior Men’s Championships in Canelones, Uruguay.

We feel that this is one way showing recognition that you have represented your Country at International level and also to thank you all for your commitment to playing for your country considering the financial penalties that accompany this.

We would like to present the Caps at National Training Weekend on Sunday 16th December at 3.45pm and hope that as many of you who have been part of the teams for each of these Championships can be present.

Keith Allen

England Senior Men achieve Silver at the Group B World Championships, narrowly missing out on Gold after a fantastic match against South Africa. Final result 4-3 to SA. Congratulations to all the team and management.

See below for the match reports for their final two matches, along with a full report of the Championships.

ENGLAND 6 AUSTRIA 2 (Half-Time 4-0)

CRUISING TO THE FINAL AND PROMOTED TO GROUP A

The preparation for this game using the day off was very good and during the tactical meeting the players understood the best way to play Austria.

We have a fantastic first half with England defend man to man restricted pressuring the man with the ball, this way Austria could not get through and in the first 10 minutes we were already 3-0 up. Then we control all game until end of the first half with lot of ball possession and good counter attack moves.

England didn’t start very well the second half gave a bit hope to Austria when they put the result in 4-2 in the first 10 minutes but then with a time out called the team got back to the performance achieved in the first half and we finished the game dominating completely the game.

I was very pleased with the players attitude prior to the match and during the match showing that we have a team off and on the rink.

Goal Scorers: Owen Stewart (3 goals), William Smith (2 goals) & Grant Zaccaria

ENGLAND 3 SOUTH AFRICA 4 (Half-Time 1-3)

GREAT GAME AND SILVER MEDAL

England started this game showing nervous and in 5 minutes in the first half we were already 2-0 down. I called the time out straight way to calm down the players and to make a couple of changes. The team then started to play better with our defence system improved and started to get more ball possession. South Africa still score one more goal during this period but we never lost our heads and 1-3 came justifying our good play in defence and attack and in the last 20 seconds of the first half we missed a penalty.

England had a great second half with large periods pressured the South Africa the team full rink and we got a deserved 2-3, however we conceded immediately the 4th goal which could damage our confidence showed during this second half.

However England still in control of the game and we were very close to beat them.

I am very proud the way our team played most of the game considering that South Africa had most of the players from last year group A and some of them playing semi-professional level. To add to this their goalkeeper had a great game against us.

Congratulations to South Africa and well done England to get back straight to Group A and win Silver medal.

Goal scorers: Danny Butcher, William Smith & Owen Stewart

FINAL REPORT SENIORS MEN – WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP GROUP B

MAIN OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED WITH PROMOTION TO GROUP A

Although we had problems to get a team I am very pleased that we managed to have enough preparation which included 2 games versus Manchester RHC to turn in this competition with levels of fitness and tactics to be a very competitive team.

We had change 7 players from last World A’s in Argentina, however we still play good hockey proving that our development plan is working well as the team played the system that we been working in England for the last 5 years.

Despite we lost first game against Egypt due a nervous start of the competition and after a one to one meeting with the players to relief the pressure on them we played the rest of the competition competitive hockey with man to man restricted pressuring the man with the ball creating good counter attacks which a few culminated with great goals. Also, we had a lot of ball possession and scoring goals from good set up moves.

The performance of the team during the week was very good and one the big factors was the good team spirit off the rink which includes obviously the management.

Well done to the boys for the promotion to Group A and now it is time to start prepare our participation in Angola next year.

England Senior Men achieve Silver at the Group B World Championships, narrowly missing out on Gold after a fantastic match against South Africa. Final result 4-3 to SA. Congratulations to all the team and management.

England's New International Referees

Our President, Keith Allen, would like to congratulate Bruno Sosa, Dave White and Mark Greenwood for passing their tests to become International Referees.

Bruno and Dave travelled to St Omer, France at the beginning of November where the Under 20 European Championships were taking place. They sat their written test and then went on to referee a specially arranged game between St. Omer and Herne Bay United.

Mark Greenwood travelled with us to Uruguay, where the World B Championships are taking place. On Sunday he sat his written test and later that day Mark refereed the game between Uruguay and Egypt in front of 4000 very noisy Uruguayan fans. This was obviously quite an intimidating environment in which to take your test but Mark rose to the occasion and passed with flying colours.

The next objective, through the help of Luis Rei, is to have at least another two new English International Referees

ENGLAND 3 MACAU 1 (Half-Time 2-0)

ACHIEVED FIRST OBJECTIVE REACHING THE SEMI-FINALS

Another consistent start for England, our man to man restricted defence, pressuring the man with the ball created a lot ball possession for us.

Our performance in the first half was in periods brilliant and the result at half-time didn’t reflect our superiority as we should have had more than a 2 goal difference.

In the second half, due to a momentary lack of concentration from our team, Macau scored from an indirect free hit taken from the top corner of our area.

From that moment on England continued to control the game with a lot ball possession and looking for quality attacks. We were still missing a lot goal opportunities and the 3rd goal was a relief for our team.

Showing improvement through the week I would like to emphasise that with 8 minutes to go England was on 14 team faults and I called a time out to ask the players to be very concentrated how to defend and we managed to finished this game without making any further faults.

Goal scorers: Owen Stewart (3 goals)

Although the streaming of games has been a little patchy, games are being aired on the following links:

http://www.antel.com.uy/mundialhockey

http://www.livestream.com/radiomarindia

England will play their semi-final match against Austria on Friday, time TBA.

The last couple of months have seen England teams competing in International Competitions across a variety of age categories.

U17'S European Championships - Ploufragan, France

Objective Achieved - 5th Place

Seniors European Championship - Paredes, Portugal

England Finish 7th At The Seniors European Championhips

U20 European Championships - Saint-Omer, France.

England Finish 7th at the u20 European Championships

Senior Ladies World Championships, Recife, Brazil

England Finish 13th at the Championships

The England Senior Men are currently out in Uruguay competing in the World Group B Championships and the last team to compete Internationally this season.

Take a look here for more detailed reports on each of the competitions.