16 nations descended on the Smederevo Steelworks Canal in Serbia over the 7th & 8th August to fish the 20th FIPS-ed U18 World Championships. England would go head to head with 2014 champions France and the 3rd place Poland and the trio once again found themselves jostling for a podium finish with host nation Serbia also in the running.
Steve Sanders, Sensas U18s Team Manager stated; “England’s performance was a stunning victory after losing most of one of the weeks practice days because of floating weed preventing them practising properly. The team plan came together on the last practice day on Thursday with a combination of carp early in the match being the target followed by a switch to small fish tactics after the first 30 minutes.
On day one this tactic worked brilliantly with England having 3 carp in the first 30 minutes in different sections. Switching to small fish cemented their positions and England finished the day with a score of 14 points on the first day with France on 18 in second, Poland on 22 in third and Portugal and Italy in equal 4th place with 24.”
The second day was always going to be a very, very tight match with the French, Polish and Italians fishing an out and out small fish match and Portugal fishing a wholly big fish match, England stuck to fishing the combination match they fished on the first day. A superb day two performance by host nation Serbia saw them score 6 points and drag themselves into the bronze medal position with a total of 46 points. The tussle between England and France see-sawed all day with neither side knowing the final result at the end of the match, but England’s tactic of fishing for big fish and being selective when fishing for the small fish resulted in France having 19 points on the second day and England scoring 21 points to give England a 2 point victory over the two day competition.
England’s Sensas U18’s have an incredible record at the World Championship in recent years, since 2011 England have won two team gold and three team silver medals with a number of individual accolades following, the latest of which 17 year old George Organ from Gloucester who’s 7 points over two days was enough to secure individual bronze.
Top 6 Team Results;
1st England 35 points
2nd France 37 points
3rd Serbia 46 points
4th Poland 46 points
5th Portugal 49 points
6th Italy 50 points
For Drennan Team England’s U23s it was a very difficult match with teams aiming to catch a carp in the first half an hour or fish for the small fish for the full match. There were few fish between the 10/12gm and carp of 1.5 -3 Kilo.
Mark Downes, Drennan U23s Team Manager said “We elected to take the carp route initially….we only hooked one, it was lost. Belgium took 3 carp in that time and ran out easy winners on day 1 with 19 points . France as usual just fished for small fish and finished 3rd with 22. After the initial 40 minutes or so it was catch up for our team and being so many small fish behind it was difficult. As the end of the match approached we had to try to catch a carp in the last 30 minutes …again no joy.
Apart from Rory Jones who had 1 carp and 2 kilo of small fish the rest of the team fell between a rock and a hard place! With England on 40 points and Belgium on 19 we had to be aggressive and we decided to fish for carp on day 2. We needed at least 3 catches and we needed a very low score to secure a medal. After 1 hour there was just one carp in the first 2 ½ sections and now we were much too far behind to make any difference with small fish.
Hindsight is a great thing but had we concentrated on small fish for the full duration we could have secured a bronze, but this is not our mentality. We were not as good as the French on the small fish so we needed a combination of both tactics to win and we couldn’t achieve that. The lads worked tirelessly in the 38 degree heat all week, and it was a shame they did not get the rub of the green they deserved. Full credit must go to the team for their perseverance and dedication, hopefully this will be rewarded next year in Portugal.”
Top 6 Team Results;
1st France 42.5 points
2nd Belgium 45 points
3rd Spain 58 points
4th Italy 58.5 points
5th Czech Republic 65 points
6th Croatia 68 points
10th England 87.5 points
