95 Days to go...

There are 95 days to go until the start of the World Indoor Lacrosse Championships in Prague. As a member of the Ireland team that competed in 2007, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this tournament.

It is going to be fiercely competitive in some games and completely lopsided in others, such is the nature of international lacrosse. Our most competitive game in 2007 was against Australia while the other games were much more convincing defeats. With that in mind, I am coming into this tournament with a chip on my shoulder; with zero wins in 2007, we have a lot to prove in May 2011. In 2003, the Czechs won no games and in 2007 they defeated us in their final game of the tournament to clinch their first WILC victory. There was huge pressure on the Czechs to beat us and they handled the pressue well coming away with a 22 - 5 victory.

Ireland will be under similar pressure to get their first WILC victory this coming May. As a team, we face a number of big challenges. We do not have a domestic box league in Ireland. We will not meet again (we met at trials in Belfast in late October 2010) as a team until a week before the WILC in Prague, with little indoor game experience under our belts. We have not drafted any professional players to our team. Having said all that, we do have some very talented players, all of whom are training hard as individuals across the island of Ireland and parts of North America.

There is no doubt that we can get our first WILC victory in May, however it won't come easy and how we train as individuals over the next 90 days before we meet in Prague for training camp will be the major difference between 0 - 4 and 1 - 3 or even 2 - 2 when we compete in Prague.