Brown & Keane Step Up to England U18 & U16 Head Coaching Roles

By Sam Neter on October 22, 2013

Karl Brown (pictured above, left) and Alan Keane (pictured above, right) have been announced as the new head coaches for the England Under-18 and Under-16 junior national teams, respectively.

Both coaches step up from assistant roles they have held for two seasons, looking to improve upon what has been a relatively successful summer for British national teams across the board.

Keane, who coaches London Pioneers U18s, as well as the London Boys North RPC and Lampton Academy, will be hoping to help return the England Under-16s to Division A after they were relegated in 2012. Taking over from Andreas Kapoulas, Keane is looking forward to the challenge.

“For me, it was very important to take the step up (to Head Coach),” he said when talking to Hoopsfix. “It was a privilege to assist Andreas Kapoulas for the past two years with the Under-16s.

“I will certainly take a lot from those two years and add it to my philosophy. It will be a challenge however I’ve been craving that challenge to help develop my coaching for the past few years.”

Keane, will be working with the talented 1998 born generation, and will have four returning players from this summer’s European Championships.

“My expectations for my first term is to hit the ground running and use my previous experience to establish the right training environment and develop a hard working, disciplined and technically sound squad,” he continued.

“I expect the selected players to come to camp prepared mentally as well as physically and bring maximum effort and concentration to training camps.”

Meanwhile, Karl Brown, who currently head coach of Leicester Warriors in Division 1 Men and the East Midlands Boys RPC, will be looking to build upon the Under-18s’ most successful ever European Championship campaign, as he takes over from Steve Bucknall.

The ’95s finished a respectable 9th in their first summer in Division A, but Brown will have the luxury of just two holdovers from that squad, 1996 born Jules Christian Dang Akodo and Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye.

Elsewhere, Jesse Sazant has been confirmed in the continuation of his role as Head Coach of the England Under-15 development programme.

Thoughts?

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