England Senior Men's Head Coach Loftus ready to welcome Iceland

Last year, his team travelled to their fellow NEVZA nation for training and practice matches. 

Now Loftus is only too happy to return the favour as he looks to build at both Senior and U22 level. 

The camp will take place from 29th to 31st May at the at the Ruth Gorse Academy. 

“Iceland are competing in the Euro League in June, so they are using this trip as a preparation camp and we are pleased to help,” said Loftus. 

“We will be having four scrimmage matches over the three days. They will arrive Friday morning and we will play the first scrimmage on Friday night. 

“There will be two sessions on Saturday and then a ‘dawn patrol’ 8am start on Sunday before Iceland flyback home on Sunday afternoon. 

“We are using it as a yardstick for when we next play in a tournament, building a body of evidence, and for the younger players it is about building experience before the U22 European Championships next year. 

“It follows on from our camp in the Netherlands at the Dutch Olympic Centre a few weeks ago, which was a big step forward. 

“We need to keep reapplying our philosophy at these get togethers, and when we were over there we also got some great ideas from (English Netherlands coach) Joel Banks. 

“We have a group of around 45 players who we will pick from and we will get it down to around 30 for this. 

“One of the things we are working on is widening the base of the pyramid so that we have more competition for places and we have already come a long way on that front.”