England and Great Britain name squads for the 2023 Men’s EU Nations Cup

England and Great Britain have both named a squad of 13 players for the 2023 Senior Men’s EU Nations Cup in Brno, Czechia.

Both teams will be fielding developmental sides with the focus on giving the U19 athletes the experience of featuring at a senior international competition.

England’s squad will see a mixture of the senior side with some of Great Britain’s U19 national squad whilst the British team will be made up entirely of members from the U19 team.

Both groups are set to fly out to Brno to compete at the newly renovated ‘Za Lužánkami’ pool for three days of competition from 8-10 December.

The England squad contains six players that were victorious at the Home Nations Cup event back in May including the likes of James Salt, Tom Manley and Elliot McHugh.

They’ll get the chance to fine tune their game ahead of a busy 2024 whilst mentoring and working with the younger athletes in the group. Amongst those younger members in England’s group are Indy Nash and Louie McKie who both took part in the U17 European Qualifiers in March and will use this competition as great opportunity to continue their development.

Great Britain’s U19’s – who were last in action back at the Next Generations Water Polo Cup in September – are set to gain more vital competition experience in Czechia ahead of their European Championship qualifiers in 2024.

Swim England’s newly crowned Water Polo Talent Athlete of the year Felix Monoghan joins up with their squad alongside Neptune’s Alistair Cook – who topped the teams scoring charts out in Spain.

British official Max Gerasimov will also be heading to the tournament to officiate the event in Czechia.

‘Maximising the benefit’

This year’s Senior Men’s EU Nations event has been split in to four groups of three teams with the winners of each group making up a new group of four to decide this year’s champions.

Great Britain have been drawn in Group A alongside the United States of America and Austria whilst England are in Group D with Finland and Euskal Selekzioa.

The initial group phase will take place on the Friday before three new groups of four are formed to decide the final placings of each team across the weekend.

Ahead of the competition Swim England Water Polo Programme Lead, Craig Figes, who is also England’s assistant coach for the event said: “Entering two squads into the EU Nations presents a great opportunity for all the athletes involved.

“It allows us to maximise the benefit of the competition for the U19 athletes whilst the senior players gain more experience of playing against some top level opposition.

“We’ve got two squads packed with talent heading to Czechia and I’m looking forward to working with the England team as we look to build on last year’s fifth place finish.”

Great Britain’s head coach Tim Dunsbee added: “The group are really looking forward to taking part in the EU nation’s senior event.

“It will be a good challenge for us to play senior national teams and is part of our build-up to the European qualifiers next March.

“We have realistic expectations of our performance at this competition and hope to gain valuable international experience.”

You can find all the information and results from the competition on the event website and each of the matches will be streamed on the ‘Czech Water Polo’ YouTube channel.

Great Britain’s U19 Women won bronze in the Senior Women’s EU Nations Cup last weekend, you can read the full report from their event here.