UK Names Squads to Play Ireland

The UK today named their Open squad and their Junior squad that will all face Ireland in a month’s time at Mollington in Cheshire. The UK named a squad of 8 ladies, 9 men and 8 juniors who will all play against the Irish teams on the 24th and 25th of July.

The ladies’ squad sees first full call ups for Sarah Peaker and Annemieke Mitchell and also a recall for Ruth Jones who has been out of the squad for a couple of years. In the men’s squad James Davidson and Robert Jenkinson receive their first call ups and Greg Burnett earns a recall. The other names in the two squads are as expected, however the ladies team does look strange without Sophie Lodder in it as she has featured in nearly every open squad since the 2003 World Cup for the UK, the only exceptions were in 2005 when she played for the Under 21’s against Zimbabwe rather than the open team and the 2007 World Cup which she missed due to a broken arm. She has decided not to play this year and her presence is sure to be missed.

The UK junior squad sees a lot of people win their first call up, Matt Smith and Lydia Rampin are both called up from Vale Impi and George Harding is called up from Ashfields. Katie Newbrook features in the squad for the first time as does Alex Rowley. Only Olivia Miller and Emily Gilfillan return from the squad that went to Australia last year and the average age of the squad has dropped from last year too so it will be interesting to see how they far against the Irish and New South Wales junior teams they have to face. They are also probably a reasonably small UK team, and this could put them at disadvantage against the bigger more physical teams of New South Wales and Ireland.