When you said Warwick Lacrosse, people used to remember our dominance in the sport. People used to remember 3 Mixed titles in 3 consecutive years. We used to be the team to beat, though that rarely happened. Mixed was what we were about, where we were strongest, where we won. 

Recently we have lost our way a little and the focus has moved away to Men’s and Women’s. Mixed has been pushed to the periphery, becoming a social event with a little bit of lax, nothing to strenuous or important.

This season is where we reclaim our reputation, where we are the team to beat, where we win back the title that should have been ours last season. I want other teams to worry when they see our names on their fixture list. This will not be an easy task, it needs the whole club to get behind it, to train, to encourage, to work together as a team. Mixed is the only place where you get to play, socialise, and I hope, to win as a club. Everyone in the club should be training hard to gain a place in the 1st or 2nd teams.

This year the league has gone women’s sticks only. Those games we used to count on as easy wins, for example Leicester, will no longer be a walkover. These are teams whose men have been playing with women’s stick for 2 seasons or more. We have to generate a new style of playing, a strong team. We shouldn’t and shan’t rely on men dominating the game, passing between themselves and running straight for goal. Those games that we won last season, those tough games where not won by that style of play. We beat Loughborough because we played like a team, because everyone on the pitch gave their all for every minute they were on.

Firstly we need to gain a good level of stick skills; this especially applies to the men who have to become proficient with playing with women’s sticks. The focus will be on Catching, Cradling and Passing.  At the same time we have to be gelling as a team, knowing where we have to be, and where our team-mates are. Lastly we need to work on our fitness, so that whichever team we play, they will not be able to keep up with us when it gets late in the game. These three things will be worked on in each training session.

We have a couple of very crucial game ahead of us. The two teams we have watch out for are Nottingham and Loughborough. We play Loughborough away very early on in the season, so within two weeks of the start of uni we have to be firing on all cylinders! That means that the training, the commitment, the effort starts from day one. The week after that we have Nottingham at home. Winning those two games is crucial to our success this season, and we have such a huge wealth of talent to do it from! No one should be thinking that Mixed isn’t for them because they won’t get into the team, come to trainings, show and develop your skill and you will be picking up a stick on a Sunday!