Ireland Women at EUC 2011
Report by Helen Hobson
Heading to what was the biggest tournament I have played in so far, nerves were at an all time high before the team headed to Maribor for the European Championships. I knew it was gonna be tough and being one of the least experienced players on the team I wanted to try and reach the standards the other players on the team set. I was hoping heading into it that the months of hard work we had all put in as a team would pay off and that for the first time in a tournament with this squad I would stay injury free for a full tournament.
Seeded 7th, it seemed like retaining our seeding or bettering it was an achievable goal. However the 1st obstacle we had to overcome was a very tough group, including Latvia, Italy and 1st seeds Great Britain. Our first opponents were Great Britain followed later in the day with a show game against the Italians. It was going to be tough day but we were all ready for the challenge and eagerly awaiting putting all our hard work into action.
We were so fired up to play Great Britain knowing that we had the potential to beat them again as we did in Amsterdam with the added incentive of one of their players not rating us at all in an interview. The team clicked from the very beginning and put in a performance that we could be so proud of. We came back from a 9-4 deficit at half time to beat the top seeds 17-15 . Unfortunately we didn’t carry this performance into the 2nd game and lost to a determined Italian side. A disappointing end to what was overall a good start to our experience. I knew that personally I had a lot more to give to the team than had been shown and was hoping it wasn’t going to take me too much longer to start playing at my best.
The following day was again one with ups and downs beating a very good Latvian side in the final game of our group narrowly, followed by an agonising loss to a very strong Danish side. This would prove to be a huge loss as it meant the highest we could finish now was 5th. Needless to say we were all gutted but knew 5th was still something well worth fighting for. Due to the loss, we had to play the Latvians again the following day, unfortunately the result went the other way and the Latvians got their revenge in what was a tough game with some agonisingly long points. That afternoon we beat Austria in what was a performance to rival the one put in against the British and was personally my best performance of the tournament.
The lowest point came the next day of the tournament where a performance that left a lot to be desired against a Czech team we knew well meant we suffered our heaviest defeat of the week. Spirits were down as now we were in the battle for 9th, a position lower than I think most had hoped for. With only three games left there was no more room for error if we wanted to ensure we didn’t drop any more places. We faced France, The Netherlands and Austria who we had faced before and were gunning for blood in these ties feeling hard done by being in such a low bracket. We stamped our authority on this 9-12 bracket winning all 3 games at quite comfortable margins.
We took 9th place in a week that had so many highs and a few lows. I still feel the full potential the team had should have been rewarded with a higher finish but some unfortunate results and injuries meant it just wasn’t to be. Playing against the top European players in the game meant I learned a huge amount in the week and would love to do it all again, and hope to in the future.