Three teams qualified for the new format Women’s competition, with the top two sides from the preliminary round robin competition qualifying for the Final. Ruislip Eagles, the newly crowned British Champions, won both their matches against Manchester University (19-4) and SON (14-8) and comfortably qualified for the final. However SON surprised everyone by beating an out-of-sorts Manchester University (10-5) to book their place in the Final. In the final SON pushed Ruislip Eagles hard and briefly held the lead after 20 minutes, but in the end experience told and Ruislip ran out 25-18 winners to take the title for the 15th consecutive year.

Top scorer in the weekend’s competition was Kocisova of Ruilsip with 17 goals, ahead of Lundegaard (9) and Casabonne (8) both from SON.

Semi-Finals in the men’s competition were played on Saturday, with the final on Sunday. In the first semi-final, undefeated British Champions Great Dane had to fight hard to overcome a determined Bolton team, and it was only in the closing stages that Great Dane pulled away to win 28-26. The other semi-final was an even more closely fought contest with Tryst and Cambridge neck-and-neck through the match, but it was Tryst who won 26-25, scoring the winning goal just before the final whistle.

After the excitement of the semi-finals, the final proved to be something of an anti-climax with Great Dane romping home to a 36-19 win. The 3rd place play-off though lived up to expectation with Bolton winning a penalty shoot-out after the teams had drawn 36 all after normal time.

Guehring of Cambridge with 20 goals was the top scorer during the weekend, ahead of Ciaran Williams (16) of Bolton, Draiff (16) of Cambridge and Drews (13) of Great Dane.

Among the other events staged over the weekend, Haslingden Under-15 girls and the England Select Under-16 team produced one of the highlights of the weekend, with both teams entertaining the spectators with some outstanding handball, Haslingden going-on to win 12-6. On Sunday England Select Under-16 lost their second match 8-11 against Manchester University.

In the Men’s Plate competition Liverpool beat Southampton 38-24 in the Final.

The BHA invited two pairs of European referees to the Cup Final weekend, Marko Bakema and Albert Smith from the Netherlands and Lars Wollny and Joerg Volkermann from Germany. Their participation, together with English pair Jason Roberts and Jon Kelly and Scottish pair Kenny McManus and David McReady, helped make this one of the best officiated events yet held in the UK.

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Contact: Paul Bray +44 (0)7774-416740

The British Handball Association has overall responsibility for Handball in the UK. The BHA first affiliated to the International Handball Federation in 1969. The BHA can be contacted on 01706 229354 E-mail: British Handball Office or visit the website: www.britishhandball.com