Three Welshmen Plus Three English Devils For GB

Three Welshmen and three English Cardiff Devils players are playing their part for Great Britain at the World Championships in Budapest.

Matthew Myers (Devils), Jonathan Phillips (Sheffield Steelers) and Ben Davies (Guildford Flames) and the Cardiff-born forwards in the GB squad, while they are joined by Cardiff’s Ben Bowns, Thomas Murdy and Mark Richardson.

GB opened with an outstanding 3-1 win against Slovenia in their group and they now face Kazakhstan on Tuesday.

That victory against Slovenia was a massive shock against a nation who played at the Olympic Games in Korea earlier this year.

Belfast Giants forward Colin Shields says their stunning win can be used as momentum for the rest of the World Championship in Budapest.

Great Britain’s Colin Shields. Pic: Dean Woolley.

The Belfast Giants forward picked up an assist as GB defeated the tournament’s top seeds 3-1 in the opening game of the Division One Group A tournament.

“This is a superb result and we can take so much momentum from it for the tournament,” said Shields, who won his 85th GB cap.

“It will give us confidence going into the rest of the games as they certainly won’t get any easier.

“But we won’t get carried away. It is great to beat the top seeds, but there is a lot of work still to be done and we have to stay grounded.”

Eight players made their GB World Championship debut and Shields felt the new faces fitted in really well.

“It was very much a new-look squad from last year in Belfast, but the new guys slotted in as though they’d been with GB for years,” he said.

“Nobody was overawed by the occasion and we played a top-class game against one of the best nations in the world.”

British forward Robert Lachowicz described the win as ‘special’ and added: “That ranks up there as one of the best since I have been playing for GB.

Great Britain coach Peter Russell.

“It was great to test ourselves against one of the higher-ranked nations in the world and brilliant that we came out on top.

“It was a hard-working performance and we can take so much from it in many ways. We have a great group of guys and the spirit is fantastic as usual.

“We have already shown we can surprise a few people with this result. Now we just need to get our heads down and carry on in the same fashion as we played today.”

GB have no game tomorrow and return to action on Tuesday when they face Kazakhstan at 4pm (3pm UK time).

Results on day one: Great Britain 3, Slovenia 1; Hungary 0, Kazakhstan 3; Poland 1, Italy 3.