Last weekend 11 female Scorpions attended the England Vixens Selection weekend in Sheffield. The two day camp gathered women from around England and included fitness testing, skills testing, drill work and classroom tactics sessions. The selection is in preparation for the European Cup on Saturday 7th October, an annual 9 a side tournament this year to be held in Bordeaux, France. Overseen by Head Coach Adam Morris and assisted by ex Vice Captain of the Vixens Chloe Hall and Australian born Melbourne University player Karina Russo the weekend was a high intensity experience which culminated in game play sessions on the second day. Some of the Scorpion women have had 2-3 years experience playing for the England Vixens but for others it was their first time having only started playing the game in February. England Vixens Captain and Scorpions player Laura Turner said ‘It was a really great weekend, the standard of play has improved dramatically over the last year and it is great to have so many new ladies playing, especially outside of London where there are very few Australians playing the game’.

With only 16 places available in the squad selection was tough but 8 Scorpion women were successfully selected for the squad, congratulations to Laura Turner (C), Rania Ramadan (VC), Danielle Saulter (VC), Alex Saulter, Beth Bailey, Allanah Blount, Lucy Kilheeney and Jo Strong. In addition to this another Scorpion Lucie Geden was chosen as reserve.

The ladies will take part in various training camps and warm up tournaments in preparation for the Euro Cup when they will compete against Scotland, Croatia, France, Sweden, Denmark and reigning champions, Ireland. Having narrowly losing out to Ireland in last year’s final the women are hungry for revenge and will be training hard with the men’s Scorpions team to be fully prepared.