Lacrosse European Championships 2001

Cardiff, Wales, July 2001

The 2001 European Lacrosse Championships were held in Penarth, near Cardiff, courtesy of the untiring efforts and famous hospitality of Penarth LC.

The nations

The England camp, somewhat controversially, decided to concentrate on development for the 2002 World Championships, instead of these European Championships, which some viewed as surprising from the reigning title holders. Instead, it was left to SEMLA and a handful of dedicated individuals to try to assemble a squad. The big question was whether this team would be strong enough to defend their title, or would be overwhelmed by their hungry competition. Wales obviously would benefit from home advantage, and Scotland didn't have too far to travel either, but Germany and the Czech Republic seemed more likely to produce an upset. The only change to last year's line-up was newcomers Ireland taking the place of Sweden.

The Men's Competition

The six teams played each of the other teams once, with the following results:

  England Czech Scotland Wales Ireland
Germany Germany 15-4 Germany 15-5 Germany 16-4 Germany 14-6 Germany 11-1
England   England 12-10 England 9-4 England 15-5 England 17-5
Czech     Czech 16-6 Czech 17-5 Czech 22-5
Scotland       Scotland 8-6 Scotland 13-5
Wales         Wales 7-5

So, Germany took full advantage of the weakened English team, and dominated the first round with an impressive set of results. An average score of over 14 against just 4 speaks for itself. Newcomers Ireland fared less well, but will have benefited enormously from these games in their preparation for their World Championship debut next year.

With the first round over, the six teams then went through to the final deciding games, the battles for 5th/6th places, for 3rd/4th places, and of course the final itself. All of these games went according to the form book, with Wales defeating Ireland 11-3, the Czech Republic beating Scotland 11-6, and in the Championship Final, Germany enjoyed an unanswered 8-goal second half rampage to beat England 16-8.

Final rankings

The final rankings for the 2001 European Championship look like this:

  1. Germany
  2. England
  3. Czech Republic
  4. Scotland
  5. Wales
  6. Ireland

Sources

Again, these results were provided by Petr from the Czech team, who has compiled them on his own site at lacrosse.cz, in Czech under 'Reprezentace'. There is more information "from the horse's mouth" at the Scottish Lacrosse Assocation page, and from the hosts Penarth Lacrosse Club, whose report (see archived version) was also carried by LacrosseTalk magazine at englishlacrosse. The only time I differ from Petr's results is in Germany v England, and Germany v Wales, for which a personal communication from dlaxv.de's Tim confirmed the results above. I think Petr can be qualified to correct the Czech-Scotland score though, listed on the Scottish website as 17-6.

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