Holmris: We did great!

HEAD Coach Jesper Holmris has heaped praise on the GB women’s team after they put on some great performances during the Four Nations Tournament in Liverpool this week.

Despite losing to Switzerland and Portugal, GB’s performances were much improved from their previous matches in Euro 2010, culminating in an emphatic 31-21 victory over Italy on Saturday.

“Looking at the tournament as a whole we have shown we can compete against Switzerland, Portugal and Italy,” said Holmris, pictured. “We are heading in the right direction so we are very positive. We were actually quite close to winning the tournament so we are a little bit disappointed about that.

“It’s really great to come back to Great Britain again to play matches. There is such a great atmosphere here with the crowd screaming, and the players love this and love playing matches here as it allows their families to come and see and support them.

“What we are seeing now is that we have a bigger depth of players to pick from in the squad. Two years ago we played in Holland in the World Championship qualifiers and we played the same seven players more or less all the time, but now we have the opportunity to swap players on court.

“Of course, Lyn and Lynn are very important in defence, but we have players like left back Kathryn Fudge and Louise Jukes who played on the line against Italy who are doing very well and this makes the squad more competitive and if we can build this environment then we will see a progression.”