Great Britain's World Games preparation suffered a blow today as
it was announced that Colin Boys had resigned as the GB coach
for the 2009 World Games just weeks after being appointed to the
role.
Boys has only recently returned from coaching the England Under
23 squad at the World Championships in Taiwan.
The England squad finished in line with expectations and Boys
would have gained invaluable experience at this event, bearing
the World Games will be held at the same location.
The resignation is the result of personal reasons and having
lost his job whilst in Taiwan Boys found himself unsure whether
he could continue in the role, or indeed travel to Taiwan in the
summer, and took the difficult decision to pull out.
His appointment came after a selection process, involving Peter
Allan, former England coach Dirk Sercu and Graham Box, which
examined a total of four applicants for the job.
The other applicants are reported to have been Scottish based
Beth Bennett, formerly with Nottingham KC, a Netherlands based
coach keen to get involved in international Korfball, and Wim
Chalmet a former Belgian Junior international currently living
in Scotland.
The BKA have acted quickly and appointed Wim Chalmet, was
presumably the 2nd choice in the selection process, and he will
now attend the trials in Manchester on the weekend of the
29th/30th November 2009 in Manchester.
Little is known about Chalmet's coaching background, other than
he has played in the Belgian league and took the Belgian
lifesaving team to the World Games in 2001, and the World Games
will certainly prove a tough test in his first international
coaching appointment.
The fact that Chalmet is likely to know little about the English
league, from where the majority of the squad will no doubt come,
and its players could be a good thing as he will come in without
any pre-conceptions. On the other hand it will mean he
will likely be relying solely on the trials in November in terms
of choosing players, and trials are certainly not the most
effective means of doing so.
With only a handful of
weekend training sessions between now and the tournament there
will be limited time to shape a squad capable of achieving a
credible result in the Games and it will interesting to see
where those training sessions are held bearing in mind the coach
is based in Scotland and the majority of the players are likely
to come from the South East region.
In reality
Great Britain has no more than a slim chance of winning a medal
and some will say they have no chance of finishing in the top 4,
bearing in mind the GB side does not get significantly stronger
with the addition of Scottish and Welsh players, if at all.
In this tournament there are no easy games which means countries
without strong squads could find themselves with some pretty
tired players at the end of the week.
The development will certainly prove an interesting one for
Steve Green, one of the country's leading players' who has been
'critical' of Colin Boy's appointment on the Korfball.com forums
and it will interesting to see what view the new coach takes of
the maverick player.
There is no news as yet as to the likely make up of the GB
coaching team, other than the appointment of Angela Fuller as
squad manager, and Chalmet will certainly need an experienced
and capable assistant in a tournament like this as a bare
minimum.
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