Ready to compete with the world

Great Britain, the hosts for London 2012 are already qualified for the Olympic Games, but they now have to go for European Championship qualification too. This will not be easy though, as they have been drawn in a really tough group with powerhouse Russia, Montenegro, and Poland.

The GB Women´s team captain, Lynn McCafferty talks to ehf-euro.com after a successful match against Russia, where her side competed well against World Champions Russia.

ehf-euro.com: Congratulations on your first two Round matches in the EHF EURO 2012 qualification. What are your reflections on those games, especially the one against Russia, where there was only a small gap between the two teams at the end!

Lynn McCafferty: We initially reflected on our performance against Montenegro quite positively. We also hoped to eliminate a few mistakes we’d made before the Russia match, and we feel we did that against Russia. 

Of course we knew they would beat us but for us to only lose by 8 is a good sign of the hard work and development we are doing. 

Now we’ll take time to reflect on our game against Russia, take away the positives (defence, goalkeeping) and work on the areas that need improving.

ehf-euro.com: You´ve been drawn in a very strong group. What goals did the team set before the tournament and have your aims changed since then?

Lynn McCafferty: Our coaches meet with us and we agree our goals before each game. We never really looked at the tournament as a whole, as on paper it’s clear we will struggle to do well. 

But by taking each match as it comes we work on our own game and do some theory on the other team as well. 

The opportunity to play in this tournament is very important for our development and will help us to achieve our Olympic goals.

ehf-euro.com: The National Team is now back in London to take part in the centralised program for the Olympic Games at the British Handball High Performance Centre. What is the Centre like, and what exactly do you do there in preparation for London 2012? 

Lynn McCafferty: We are a squad of 17, based in London. We train every day, and 3 or 4 times it will be twice-a-day, depending on our schedule. 

The training is a mix of handball, strength, conditioning, metabolics, sprinting, agility and theory. 

As we are funding ourselves, we also have to try and fit jobs into our spare time. This is proving difficult for us and we hope that we will have some funding from somewhere that will help us with living costs so we can fully concentrate on the Olympics in January.

ehf-euro.com: How do you see the last 1-2 years of British Handball, in what parts of the game have you and your team-mates developed and what else is needed for improvement in the upcoming years ?

Lynn McCafferty: We have progressed a lot over the last 2 years.  Our defence has always been our strength and it continues to grow in the right direction.

We’ve worked hard on our attack and that has definitely got better, but now we create the chances but maybe don’t score enough, so we have to work on this. 

We want our fast-breaks to be more efficient as we feel we must score more ‘easy’ goals against some of our opponents due to what we lack physically. 

ehf-euro.com: Will you follow the World Championship in Brazil? Who are your favourites for the medals?

Lynn McCafferty: Yes, definitely! We were supposed to be there as spectators and play some games but now we aren’t sure if we are going, but otherwise we’ll still follow it. 

With Russia holding the title for the last 3 championships, it’s hard not to have them as favourites. Then of course you have Norway as the European champions and Olympic champions, but their team has changed a little for this championship and I don’t think it’s their strongest team. 

Montengro are really planning on doing well this tournament and I think they could be medal contenders. France are also a very strong team but didn't do so well in the European championship. 

Russia, France or Montengro, and maybe the Netherlands pulling a surprise, or Croatia!?

ehf-euro.com: What would be your dream result at the Olympic Games in London next year?

Lynn McCafferty: Our goal is to reach the quarter-finals. This is also a dream for me. 

To go to the Olympics and get through the preliminaries would be fantastic. After that it would be extremely difficult to get to the semis and be one of the top 4 teams at the Olympics.

Further Information

Find more information on the Women's EHF EURO 2012 Qualification HERE.

View more detailed information on the event on the Official EHF EURO 2012 Website.
www.ehf-euro.com/NED2012/

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