The river Sava produced some excellent catches of bleak, bream and nase a fish that is not found in England, and during the weeks practice some members of the team had weights of up to 20lb. Unfortunately match day results did not reflect these weights and the wheels came off for the Drennan U23 England team.
Team Manager Mark Downes said:
“The under 23’s caught exceptionally well during practice and were confident of a good result. The target species was nase, a dace like fish that is fairly common in Europe, but not found in the UK. Unfortunately on match day these fish can became very difficult to catch and the team crashed to 13th on day one.
Day two saw a slight improvement as the team finished 6th but overall this was our worst performance for many years.”
The match was dominated by eastern European teams with Hungary winning Gold, silver went to Croatia with outsiders San Marino taking Bronze.
Despite this result Drennan Team England U23’s still rank second in the World after Italy.
Team result U23
1st Hungary 31 points
2nd Croatia 46 points
3rd San Marino 49 points
12th England 79 points
18 teams fished
The Sensas sponsored under 18’s had a brilliant weekend with the team winning silver and 17-year-old Luke Wroziek from Wakefield taking the individual bronze.
Sensas U18’s England Team Manager, Steve Sanders and his assistant Joe Roberts masterminded a plan that almost produced a gold medal for the team. By balling in chopped worm and caster in a mix of Sensas River and Terre de Riviere the team caught several species including nase, bream and the odd carp using worm and caster on the hook. The first 20minutes were spent catching bleak before switching to long pole at 11.5m.
Day one finished with England in pole position on 16 points with Slovakia on 17 points and Serbia 21 .The Slovakian team, however, produced an amazing winning performance on day two by amassing only eight section points to England’s 20 points.
Team result U18
1st Slovakia 25 points
2nd England 36 points
3rd Croatia 38 points
Individual result U18
1st Roman Pavelka Jnr Slovakia 2 points 13.247kg
2nd Andrej Rimes, Slovakia 2 points 12.871kg
3rd Luke Wrzoselk England 2 points 11.469kg
U18 England Team Manager Steve Sanders said:
“The individual result could not have been closer with three anglers posting perfect two section wins and the result being determined on weight. Luke was so unlucky to lose out in such a way but the whole week went well for the team and I am very pleased with our overall performance.”
Dick Clegg, International Events Manager commented:
“I know the amount of effort that both our team management and squad members put into competing at world level and I am pleased with their performance. If you look at the results you can see how strong the eastern European countries have become, and we need to continue to up our game to stay at the top.”
