The three womens squads across the GB pathway - U17, U19, and senior - are set for a competitive number of days in Portugal. It will be the first time the U17 cohort has competed abroad, whilst the U19's will relish competing after a good block of domestic training. The senior squad now with the World Championship Qualifiers in their sights will gain much missed competition experience having not competed since pre-covid.
All squads will be competing in the Parades Cup in Porto. The U17s will play in the U20 tournament, against Portuguese club sides. The Senior and U19 squads will be together in the senior tournament, competing against Portuguese and Spanish club sides, as well as the Portuguese and Spanish national teams. You can follow the information and scores on this website http://paredescup.com/en/
GB U17 squad for Porto
Clio Stephanides (BM Solucar)
Santina Bunting (Birmingham)
Asha Hall (Cambridge)
Freya Murty (Kelvinside)
Ruth Knowles-Jackson (Stroud)
Jasmine Hill (Shropshire)
Sofia Slattery (Shropshire)
Francesca Fraser-Hook (Stroud)
Catarina Brazolin Bento (West London Eagles)
Grace Concar (Olympia Cannock)
Flossie Willis (Somerset Spartans)
Kaylee Nisbett (Somerset Spartans)
Rosie Fleming (Poole Phoenix)
Polly Farrow (Olympia Cannock)
GB U17 Head Coach Matt Durber said - "This is a great opportunity for the players to gain experience playing against a higher level of opposition than they are used to in domestic competition. This will be the first time this group has played against opposition from a different country, and they are looking forward to the challenge.
Our main aim for this competition is to see if the players can put into matches what we have been working on in training and see how well our technique and playing systems hold-up under pressure of a higher intensity game."
GB U19 Squad for Porto
Hannah Saunders
Tabitha Sherratt
Lucy Thornewell
Caitlin Wouters
Kiara Edwards
Heidi Warren
Alice Anderson
Ella Oldland
Mel Edwards
Ella Dibden
Holly Luke
Alice Abis
Sadie Quinn
Mia Williams
GB Senior Squad for Porto
Alexandra Neilson
Alice Beresford
Charlotte Lilley
Eleanor Thompson
Gabrielle Leese
Grace Cappel
Jenifer Mitchell
Katrina Thorslund
Marta Tubacka
Naomi Bell
Paige Schofield
Zoe Lacour
Sophie O’Sullivan
Teresa Woodiwiss
Anna Fuhrmann
Georgina Gowland
GB Senior Women’s Head Coach Paul Dempsey commented: “Our training camp in Portugal will allow the athletes to leave their regular life and routine behind for the week and purely focus on training with no distractions. The benefits if training and socialising with like minded individuals are enormous, this camp will allow the athletes to bond and create strong understanding relationships with each other.
We will use this opportunity to convert previous training elements into competitive game situations, building confidence and understanding game strategy that we are instilling into the team. This competition will also give the coaching teal a good indication of who the best candidates for the World Championship Qualifying squad will be. Our squad have been training exceptionally well so competition is very high. All in all, it will give is a benchmark since restarting the programme after the pandemic.”
