England Head Coach Dave Elwood took his troops on another warm up exercise last Thursday, flying out to Philadelphia for a three day, two game tour.

As has been the case for whole of the World Cup preparation schedule, maximum challenge was the order of the day, this time served up as the Baltimore Bayhawks and the Philadelphia Barrage. The Bayhawks and Barrage are both Major League Lacrosse (MLL) teams, a professional summer league launched in 2000, comprising of former college lacrosse stars and a range of players making a full time living from lacrosse, either through camps, coaching or the National Lacrosse League (NLL) - the professional Box Lacrosse competition.

The team met the Bayhawks at St. Pauls School, north of Baltimore, on Saturday afternoon and started strongly, providing the game's first goal, and then trading scores until both sides were locked at 3 - 3. At this point the Bayhawk's class began to wear down the tourists, as they started to generate quick transition goals from the face-off. The MLL team got off a ten goal unanswered run to head into the halftime break ahead 13 - 3.

The third period was a much closer affair - the team's switched from the MLL rules to international rules at halftime, which meant an end to the 60 second shot clock, and allowed England to play with more controlled possessions. Still, with players like Mark Millon and Tom Marechek, it was difficult to keep the Bayhawks completely at bay, but the home side only took the third quarter 4 - 3. Further encouraging signs were shown in the fourth period as the visitors showed that their constant attention to fitness was paying dividends, the Bayhawks having to settle for just a four goal advantage, taking the final quarter 6 - 2, and running out 23 - 8 winners. For some perspective the Bayhawks averaged 19 goals a game against the rest of the MLL in 2005, putting a record 31 goals past Philadelphia (including a 11 - 2 fourth quarter blow out) last June.

Tom Gosnay led the line for England with 2g and 1a, with Paul Flowers also registering a hard earned double. Dave Bryant, Mark Reynolds, Sam Dunwoodie and AJ Beard all contributed a goal and an assist to round out the England scoring. All three England goalies got playing time making 15 saves between them. The Bayhawks did have their way at the face-off X, picking up 31 of the 37 contested centres.

Sunday provided another tough game, but England impressed, failing to be over-awed by the level of competition, and only dropping the game by 12 goals the barrage, 20 - 8.

Another period of intensive training awaits the players over the next few weeks before they fly to Ohio for their pre-tournament warm fixtures.