U21 & U16 Squad Selection

Venue: River Raia – Portugal

10 – 18^th September 2006

Mark Downes, the under 21 intermediate team coach for Drennan team England and Steve Saunders the under 16 coach for Sensas NFA team England, named their squads this weekend after two sweltering days of trials at Larford Lakes near Droitwich in Worcestershire.

Current World Champion and Bassetlaw’s Sportsman of the year 2005, Matt Godfrey was selected for the under 16’s squad, ready for the trip to Portugal.

Amongst the young anglers selected for the under 16’s was Kevin Lavelle from Liverpool.

Kevin’s main goal is to fish for England and with good results in the Whizzo youth classic and Browning youth masters, Kevin looks set to achieve his goal.

Also in the under 16’s is Daniel Huxley (Evesham Junior Champion) joins a squad of high quality anglers with already good experience of high profile matches.

Mark Downes added “we had two good squads, but the venues we are visiting are very difficult.

Re-doing our double gold will be hard but I’m sure both squads are perfectly capable of doing very well.”

Mark explained that “after three years of running the under 16 squad, we are now seeing more and more youngsters moving through the ranks and in the next few seasons our youth policy will result in a more experienced, stronger squad.”

Under 16 coach Steve Saunders said “year on year the team selection is getting harder as the quality increases. This year was getting especially difficult and there were a dozen youngsters in the hunt up to the last session.”

England U21:

1. Calum Dicks – Bristol.
2. John Plows – Worksop.
3. Rick Hines – Wigan.

(Were all in last years winning squad and are joined by…)

4. Kevin Lavelle – Liverpool.
5. Marcus Harrison – Horsham.
6. Jonathan Taylor – Peterborough.

England U16:

1. Matt Godfrey – Sheffield (Current World Champion).
2. Matt Derry – Walsall.
3. Adam Byrom – Royston.
4. Daniel Fulger – Huddersfield.
5. Daniel Huxley – Doncaster.
6. Jake Marshall – Surrey.
7.