Buller and Dunsbee appointed U19 coaches for 2016 season

Nick Buller and Tim Dunsbee have been appointed as head coaches of the England women’s and men’s U19 water polo squads respectively for the 2016 season.

Both teams will be aiming to qualify for the European U19 Water Polo Championships with the women’s event taking place in Gouda (women’s) and Alphen (men’s) in the Netherlands next summer.

“This is an exciting time to be involved with the national team as our players are improving all the time,” – Nick Buller.

Buller guided the Great Britain 1998 women’s squad through qualification for the inaugural European Games and to an 11th place finish at the Games in Baku.

“I’m pleased to have been given the opportunity to show what this squad can achieve,” said Buller.

“This is an exciting time to be involved with the national team as the level of players is improving all the time.

“The Baku European Games was a good starting point and future teams will only learn and build from that experience.

“I’ll be looking closely at not only those who went to Baku and those going to Greece for the Under 20 World Championships in August, but also the many emerging talents coming through and the players who maybe only just missed out on selection previously.

“Our goal is to build a strong outfit and perform well at next year’s Championships, and with the talent available I’m confident we can achieve that.”

Buller will appoint the remainder of his coaching team in the next few weeks in conjunction with Water Polo Management Group performance lead Phil Winstanley and England Water Polo manager Ian Elliot.

Tim Dunsbee head shot. Head coach of U19 men's team.Dunsbee will lead the men’s squad, having worked within the junior national set-up for a number of years and previously been team manager for the senior men’s team.

Andy McGinty, Tom Wall and Sean King will be assistant coaches for the squad while Colin Walsh has been named team manager and Addison Brown as analyst.

“I’m very honoured to be appointed,” said Dunsbee. “We will work as hard as possible to try to deliver a competitive team.

“We have a lot of work to do with this group but there is a lot of talent there and they will need to apply themselves over the coming months in a positive way if we are to achieve our goals.

“I’m delighted to be working with this set of staff and I am excited for the future.”

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