PREMIER LEAGUE RESUMES STRIPPED OF 16 ON INTERNATIONAL DUTY

by Seán Cotter 6 November 2009

Surbiton supporters can watch their men’s 1st XI at home for the first time in three weeks when the club takes on Cannock at Sugden Road this Sunday (8 November, 2.00pm).

Despite last weekend being a league rest day, the home team was still displaced from top spot by a worse goals difference of just three in the National Premier Division as rivals Reading dropped their first points of the season with a 0-0 draw from their game in hand at Beeston on Saturday.

So the race for the league championship, with East Grinstead lurking just three points behind, is back to six games played apiece with 12 to go, four of them before the winter break.

However, although winning the league still automatically qualifies that team for Europe the following season, at the behest of the Premier Division clubs the other two entries designated to England in the 2010/11 EuroLeague will not go automatically to the second and third-placed teams, but will be determined in a series of end-of-season Championship Play-offs (too complicated to detail in this short space) between the top five clubs.

The aim of this is to mitigate the disadvantage to clubs of losing players to international demands – as occurred when Surbiton had to play a whole season (2007/08) without their six Beijing Olympians. However, outside the Great Britain cycle, for instance this season, even more players are affected by the combined demands of Scotland and Wales and England.

This weekend and next, for example, no less than 16 premier division players are away with four different countries, two of them, including Surbiton’s Allan Dick, with Scotland and 11, including Cannock’s David Kettle, with Wales at the second World Cup Qualifier in New Zealand from Saturday 7 to Sunday 14 November.

Three other players, Surbiton’s Andrew Sheridan with USA and two Loughborough Students players with Ireland, are also missing this weekend, but plus the following two, to compete at the third World Cup Qualifier in Argentina from 14 to 22 of this month.

A maximum of a further 18 (including up to five from Surbiton’s squad) will then miss the last two pre-Christmas fixtures playing for England at the Champions Trophy in Melbourne from 28 November to 6 December.

Preview from www.surbitonhc.com club website and “Surrey Comet” and “Surrey Advertiser Elmbridge Edition” local newspapers 6 October 2009