WorldNet 2011
06 Jul 2011

The Inter Blades will be taking part in the 16th annual WorldNet competition on the 23rd and 24th July 2011.  The IFA ‘England Vs Scotland’ International match takes place on the evening of Friday 22nd July 2011, and for the second year running Mark Ashton of the Inter Blades has won and International call up for the fixture.  Once again the competition will be held at Bodington Hall, Leeds.
 
For those of you that are not aware of the WorldNet tournament, this is the pinnacle of the IFA season, teams from around the UK plus usually Castle Rock from Ireland, RC Lens from France and Arsenal Nigeria from….  well, I’m sure you can guess!  There are usually 64 teams (48 though this year I think) in the main “IFA Cup” competition with a further 20-24 teams entering the Veterans tournament that runs alongside it.
 
Full information can be found at http://www.worldnet.org.uk
 
Day one sees the teams split into groups of 4 and follows a “Champions League” style format, whereby each team plays 3 group games (30 minute matches – 2 x 15 minute halves), the top two from each group progress to the main “IFA Cup” competition on Day Two, with the bottom two teams taking part in the “WorldNet Bowl competition on Day Two.  In addition teams can arrange friendly fixtures in between to fill in the gaps (we played 4 friendlies at the last tournament to utilise the large squad we took – 22 players!).
 
Day Two as I’m sure you can guess is a straight knockout competition, so if you are unfortunate enough to be knocked out at the first stage of day two (which has happened to us before), then it’s a very short day!  Although if you make it all the way through to one of the finals (which has also happened to us - Bowl winners in 2007), then its two pretty long but enjoyable days.