5th August 2017: Cardiff hosts the women’s EuroHockey Championship II which runs from August 6-12 at the Sport Wales National Centre with teams from France, Ukraine, Italy, Russia, Poland, Belarus, Austria and of course hosts Wales.
Wales remained in this division 2 years ago finishing 5th in Prague. As Ireland and Czech Republic are now in the Championship Division, they are out of the equation, but have been replaced by a hungry Italy and Poland, fresh from HWL2017, Poland finished 10th but had some excellent performances and Italy finished 6th in Brussels, 10 slots ahead of their World Ranking.
Hosts Wales will be hoping to take advantage of the 12th ‘man’ as Vice Captain, Leah Wilkinson told BBC Sport Wales in a recent interview “In previous years we would be looking to keep the score against the bigger sides to 3, but nowadays under new managements and a different mindset we have a good momentum behind us. We’ve recently jumped 6 world ranking points. Being a home should be a huge advantage, we saw that at the CWG in Glasgow that friends and family being there was a great support to the girls, so we hope that 12th ‘man’ will make all the difference.”