Asunto: U19 Handball NT

With both teams playing very high (and us being the away team) we came within 5 points of the italian team, who were using a team of 3 18yos and the rest were 19yos, to our 17-18 yos (and 1 16yo!)! The future looks bright for this team!

Good Season Krokador - Looking forward to working with you again next year

Starting the round of call-ups for this season's U19 team, we are happy to welcome:

Pivots
Jeffery Dill (hopefully offensive to fill in for Linton next season)

Goalie
Connor Hathaway (17 yo)

Wings
Gavin Merkel (18 yo, offensive)
Philippe Heggs (17 yo, defensive)

Backs
[...]

Gais, if some of you could train pivots from time to time, it would make things easier! lol. It's by far the position that's hardest to fill. After Linton, we don't have an offensive one for next season unless Dill's owner agrees to train his shooting. Cairns is 17yo and will be our defensive starter. Then we have Dan Babcock in a team with lvl 9 or 10 training facilities (I should've kept him, although he has Defensive back qualities and I have too many of those already). And then Dwight foster, in a team with lvl 7 training facilities...

Guess I'll train Baldry's Aggressiveness in case I can't find anyone.

Whoops, went a little trigger happy with that post button. Here's the rest of them for today:

Wings
Rigoberto Crawford (17yo, 2-way)

Backs
Gordie Huntley (17yo, offensive)
Tommy Duchesne (17yo, defensive)

with those guys we are up to 27 players. Two of them are on a "could cut" list if we seem to lack space:

Chris Hollander (Heggs is 2 years younger and less than 100 OR behind, although the 20exp could weigh in there)
Gordie Lavigne (Huntley is Universal, only 40 OR behind, 2 years younger)

If I'm missing anyone, let me know!

I would consider grabbing Alphonse Lo to help split goalie duties next season

I don't really know what to say about this loss. Our offense played okay, considering it's mostly 18yos out there on that front line. Our defense is actually not too bad, considering we have a 17yo down the middle.

Our players aren't speedy for the most part, so I figured trying to offset their fast break with slow transition would work out okay. Sometimes that backfires, like when the team turns over the ball so much and we don't capitalize on theirs.

I don't know how it would work out, if I played McNeill as pivot on the back end, and Campeau in his place instead of Cairns. We'd have a much more well-rounded middle, just with a bit less aggressivity, and Campeau would bring more speed and passing to the rear-end. However he's got 0 chemistry right now, while Cairns has 17... I guess we'll see how the next 2 games play out, but I may just write this season off as a rebuild and focus on building up the 18/17yos instead if we collect 2 more losses.

What do you guys think?

Go with the young guys and returnees as soon as there is no hope. I have done this in U19 basketball so the young guys can built chemistry and experience. In that sport, we are qualifying on alternate years because of this strategy. Otherwise, we would never qualify.That may happen eventually if we don't see some improvement in the quality and training of players coming out of the academies. Loss of leading teams each year is costing us big time in both of those areas.

Then again, since chemistry transfers over to the next NT team and the U21 is already splitting duties between 20/21yos, I guess balancing chemistry a bit would benefit them, too? At least the ones that will definitely be starters the next season.

Sounds good to me.

20% max is the transfer for chemistry

Nail-biter of a win today vs Bulgaria. Huge win putting us 2-1 and seriously solidifying our qualification chances

I think this is as close to a goalie's duel as Handball gets!

Unfortunately, they were playing normal vs our very high, so I'm pretty sure we won't get this lucky next time around. Bosnia and Herzegovina are basically on the same level as us, so it's still very up in the air whether we have a chance or not.

On the upside, we'll be pretty strong next season, so if we lose the next game, I'll just focus on next year's team and that'll be that.

Wow - another impressive win today for U19 improving their record to 3-1

We got lucky. I can't say I'll be able to do that again for the next duel against these guys. We've been playing VH the entire season, most of the other teams hit us with Normal of High so far. If they decide to crank it up we're totally toast :/

Goal is to qualify by beating out Bulgaria and China. Qualifying for the next round will give our players extra chem and extra training which will go along way for next season. We can do it