John Murphy, Gavin Maguire and Sam Hanley all travel to Germany tomorrow to represent Ireland’s Senior Men at the European Senior Championships. This is an extremely well prepared Irish team who have spent over two weeks in the lead-up to the event at an intensive Swedish training camp under the guidance of coach Peter Nilsson. Training in Halmstad BTK with players like Fredrik Håkansson (former European and World champion), Wang Jiangfeng and Peter Nilsson (world champion for juniors) and the other players in Halmstad BTK’s best training group was a fantastic experience for the squad. The Swedish trip also saw the players entered into two tough tournaments, the Vaxjo Grand Prix and the Halmstad Masters Grand Prix. Speaking to ITTAWeb, Coach Nilsson was happy overall with the camp:
“The Växjö Grand Prix tournament is a very strong tournament and we could have played a little better! We must improve serve, return, first attack and first block. During the Halmstad Masters tournament the players played much better! They had improved serve and returns and was a little safer on the first attack. The best result was Sam Hanley when he came to the last 8 in junior boys. It will be an interesting Europeans where we have an interesting draw in the team event! If all 3 players play there best at the same time we could be number 1 or 2 in the group and have a chance to go up 1 division.”
The Irish are drawn against Lithuania, San Marino, Kosovo, Armenia and Malta.
The Team event begins on Sunday 13th September – check back here for regular updates.
Squad:
John Murphy
Sam Hanley
Gavin Maguire
Peter Nilsson(Coach)
Ken Strong(ITTA Delegate)