The USA have named their 8 person World Cup team for 2011 and on the men’s side it looks fairly similar to that which finished 7th in 2007. The only change is Seth Alcott coming into replace Ryan Trueblood, as Robbie Shuttles, Ryan Murphy and Ryan Strider all keep their places. Only 1 lady player has survived from the 2007 team though and that is Erin Murphy (nee Smoyer), she is joined by Rachael Gayler, Dori Johnson and Heather Shuttles. This means the USA will see the total age of their Ladies section decrease quite considerably from the 142 years it stood at in 2007.

The USA were disappointed to finish 7th in 2007 and will be looking to do better in 2011. They will hope a younger, stronger ladies’ section will go some way to achieving this,as undoubtedly their ladies section was weak in 2007. Their men were stronger and now with 4 year’s more experience they could create some problems. They will probably. however, have the misfortune of being in a pool with both Australia and South Africa which could make progression to the semi finals very hard indeed and maybe make the best they can hope for is 5th place.

However, they do have a secret weapon in their coach, the internationally renown Australian player Jane Cooper, and she will know better than anyone how the current World champions will play if her team does have to face them at some point and she will do all she can to get the USA into a state of readiness to surprise the world.