DEVELOPMENT TRIALS RECORD!
June 24th 2007

The Development Team trials were held at Plymstock School yesterday, and a record 153 players turned up to try out. Selections were made for the Under 14, Under 15, Under 16 and Under 18 boys teams, all of whom will be playing in the English National Leagues this season.

Players who were with the teams last season have all been guaranteed places on teams again this year, but over 120 extra players turned up wanting to play for the Raiders. Each of the squads can only take a maximum of 20 players, so inevitably but unfortunately there are some disappointed players. However, this year we will be putting in place some extra training sessions for the players who were unsuccessful in a bid to help them develop and be ready for national league competition next season.

"The standard was higher than I've ever seen it," said Under 18s coach Caine Braddon. "It was really good to see so many people here interested in playing for the Raiders in the future, and they came from as far as Land's End and Bude in Cornwall and Cullompton in East Devon. Every time the door opened, more and more players came in wanting to try out."

Last year was a "consolidation" year for the Raiders' development programme, and this year we will be hoping to push on and make some big improvements. We now have an Under 18 team back in the Premier League where we're going to play against some fantastic teams - Reading and TASIS included. It's certainly not going to be easy for them, but the standard of competition in the Conference last season wasn't particularly high. We are also starting up the Under 15s team and they will be playing a host of other friendly games throughout the season to help them improve and play more competitive games.

"The standard of teaching basketball in schools is obviously increasing, judging by the ability of the players who turned up this year, and it was great to see so many players coming from schools where our BBL players are out coaching in," said Raiders Chief Executive Dave Briggs. "Year on year, the standard gets higher and higher and it was difficult for us yesterday to actually select a final 20. In fact, we're having to bring back half of the Under 15s because the standard was so good, and there were so many players, we just didn't get a chance to see as much of the players as we wanted."