Day four - napping in the Sun

Day four was a long day. Australia v Japan was the 0930 game and after staying up late the night before finishing emails and blogs there wasn't a huge amount of sleep racked up on the MudCrab timesheet.

Germany played South Korea on the big stage after the Australian game. These are Red Division teams and it is tricky to know what to make of them. Korea are a developing nation. I am, and I am sure everyone else thinks the same way, pleased to see them here. They are representing their nation and teams like this put the World into Championships.

However being honest they are a developing nation. They would struggle I feel against most Australian State League teams but then again Australia is one of the (cough) top four (cough) powerhouse lacrosse nations.

(okay so the power in the top three powerhouse nations is maybe a LITTLE higher then Australia at the moment but my point is Australia has a playerbase and regular competitions and Korea, to the best of my knowledge, does not.)

So where does that leave Germany? While I confess to being a mild Germophile and speak a little VERY bad German I am not sure what to make of their team. They are top of the Red Div and therefore going to get one of the wild card shots at the finals once the pool rounds finish later today, but as I saw it they did not put the lower ranked Korea away. Winning 11 to 4 against a team like Korea does not really leap out and scream 'put us into Blue Div.'

Still, looking at their team roster and listening to their accents it seems all their players are German. Some of the 'other nations' teams over the years (yes Ireland I am pointing the finger) seem to have contained a lot of 'American' based players so it is good to see some home grown European lacrosse coming out. Considering 2010 Worlds is in the UK and Finland is bidding for the 2012 U19s there could be some strong European nations coming out the change rooms in the next few years.


Which brings us to Iroquois v England.

As we know, the VERY hungry English team put Australia down the night before. Despite a little nap on the lawns and associated red sunburn tone to my normal crab like shell, I had had a long day and believed the strong Iroquois would put the English comfortably away.

So I caught the bus, fell asleep on it and went back to the hotel.

Mistakes number one, two and three on the MudCrab's score card.

England came from behind - long behind - to lead. Iroquois scored back infront. England chased. Iroquois, probably through toughness and experience, got away with a 21 to 16 win but based on the score updates I was watching online from the hotel room, that result was never a sure thing.

England, it seems, are very hungry this Championships and in someways goes to prove my comment that they deserved to beat us last night. Since again I do not believe Australia has the firepower to beat Iroquois later today - although it goes without saying there are 23 Australian players ready to show me a score card in about 6 hours time just before shoving it up my arse - so I feel England will finish the pool games 4th. This will leave them in running for the gold so it will be interesting to see if this hunger is enough to make them actually win in the finals or just to get them there.