The England Under 20 team delivered a convincing win on Portugal’s River Sorraia last week, where they battled searing heat during practice to find the perfect way to unlock the venue and register a gold medal-winning 21.5-point score. The squad finished well clear of Hungary in second place on 34 points, with France taking the bronze medal a further two points back.
After winning day one with a fine 10.5-point tally, England never took their foot off the gas, pummelling the opposition with a further 11 points to leave nobody in any doubt regarding the final outcome.
And it wasn’t just team gold that England bagged. Josh Duffy was crowned individual World Champion with a three-point score, the same as his teammate Billy Kirk, who had to settle for silver after recording a lower total weight – just 40g lower!
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Alfie Nicholls weighed in with five points for fifth place individually, while Callum Jennings scored 10.5 points over the two days. Louis Morris and George McHugh made up the remaining two squad members who didn’t fish.
“This is an unbelievable result! The lads fished brilliantly all week, a proper team effort, and have worked every day towards this medal since the squad was announced in May,” said proud team boss Jason Kirk.
“Tactics through the week revolved around pole and slider fishing at long range, but we discovered a trick in practice that led to us ditching the waggler in favour of a pole-only attack for barbel and carassio.
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“We don’t want to give the secret away, but we were surprised that none of the other teams had sussed it out. It certainly worked for us!”
Josh and Billy’s charge towards the title followed a similar path, both anglers winning their sections on day one and then taking seconds 24 hours later. Interestingly, their fish counts were into three figures, while those around them caught far less, showing that quantity and not quality was the best way to go about things.
Josh bagged 4-250 against Billy’s 3-605 on Saturday, the tables turning on day two with Billy having the better weight of the two, 4-130 against Josh’s 3-705. That left just 40g between the two lads – incredibly close!
TEAM RESULT: 1 SSB Group Team England, 21.5pts; 2 Hungary, 34; 3 France, 36; 4 Portugal, 44.5; 5 Italy,
46; 6 Netherlands, 46.5; 7 Poland, 53; 8 Ireland, 57; 9 Spain, 60; 10 Czech Republic, 62.5; 11 Croatia, 67.
Individual result: 1 J Duffy, SSB Group Team England, 3pts (7-955); 2 B Kirk, SSB Group Team England, 3 (7-915); 3 T Cunha, Portugal, 3 (7-005); 4 R Vido, Hungary, 4; 5 A Nicholls, SSB Group Team England, 5; 6 C Fargeau, France, 6.
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