Report from the Euro Champs
Side left stranded in eighth position
Team england’s quest to be crowned european champions ended in disappointment on Ireland’s rock-hard River Bann as a lack of fish and red-hot weather saw the side finish eighth.
lithuania took gold ahead of france in second and the netherlands came third.
Totalling 89pts over the weekend, england were 31pts away from bronze and on a river with few bonus fish to go for, that gap was always going to be too much.
small perch were the main targets alongside a handful of roach later in the match. after scoring a big 50pts on day one, england rallied on day two with 39pts to move up one place overall. however, it was too little too late as the damage was already done.
Top performer on the river around portglenone and Bellaghy was william raison in 12th place on 10pts. steve hemingray scored 15pts for 31st, but that was as good as it got on a venue where some draws were the kiss of death on both matches.
That 50pt day one score was made up of a fifth in section for James dent, a sixth for steve hemingray, eighth for william and 15pts and 16pts for alan scotthorne and cameron hughes respectively. matt derry replaced cameron on day two and returned 10pts to sit alongside a second in section for william, seventh for alan, ninth for steve and 11th for James.
“i think we were there at the wrong time of year as there were so few fish to catch. yes, it was a bad venue, but the match was there to be won and we had as good a chance as anyone,” said england manager mark downes.
“in practice we caught well and we were happy with our plan but come the weekend, things fell apart. The plan didn’t work and we weren’t catching but at least we weren’t the only ones in that boat!
“The tactics were wrong as we, like a lot of teams, fished a ‘continental-style’ match with bloodworm and joker. lithuania fished an english match, using groundbait and loosefed maggot,” he continued. “one of the lithuanian team fishes the Thames a lot with our coach steve sanders and after the match he said to me ‘i fished like i do on the Thames with steve!’ i couldn’t believe it.”
england’s plan was to begin fishing for perch with a sensas lake and leam mix with joker and pinkies, before going for a few roach with thin pencil-type floats through the peg and lifted and dropped to induce a bite.
“four or five roach were mega, so that shows how little there was to catch,” said mark. “we caught the perch well enough, but the roach were
non-existent for many and i reckon we were guilty of putting all our eggs in one basket, but the things we did worked in practice so we had no reason to suspect anything else,” he added.
Team result: 1 Lithuania, 49pts; 2 France, 55; 3 Netherlands, 58; 4 Ireland, 66 (13-902); 5 Poland, 66 (11-399); 6 Spain, 70.5; 7 Hungary, 85; 8 Team England, 89; 9 Czech Republic, 90; 10 Italy, 92.5; 11 Germany, 101.5; 12 Slovenia, 104; 13 Belgium, 106; 14 Russia, 110 (5-659); 15 Luxembourg, 110 (4-989); 16 Scotland, 135.5; 17 Finland, 142.
Individual result: 1 R Ansing, Netherlands, 3pts; 2 S Linder, France, 4 (6-742); 3 T Buzas, Lithuania, 4 (3-769); 4 M Alekna, Lithuania, 6; 5 L Csillag, Hungary, 7 (4-333); 6 M Rodriguez, Spain, 7 (2-269).