Tom Roche excited at prospect of championing sixes format

“I’m really looking forward to it. We had a really good group of people in my first year at The Fly and it was a lot of fun.

“I’m really interested to see how much of that carries on, obviously with some new players in, and see how much we can merge the cultures and find some new bits too.”

Those are the words of Forge Men’s Team Icon, Tom Roche, ahead of his appearance at The Fly 2023.

Tom first featured at The Fly in 2021 and, after a year away from the competition where he became a European champion at the 2022 European Box Lacrosse Championship in Hanover, Germany, he’s ready to make his The Fly return, especially as a Team Icon.

“It’s very flattering, for sure but I’m not sure I’ve ever been described as an icon before so I’m definitely pleased about that one!

“But in all seriousness, I was sceptical about the sixes game at first but I’ve really been won over by it 100 per cent, particularly with me being a person who’s really interested in box lacrosse.

“I think there’s some real opportunities for the game in sixes so I’m delighted to be a champion for it.”

Thinking back on his experience of The Fly 2021, where his Forge team narrowly missed out to Rise by one point in the final, Tom only has positive memories.

“The whole tournament was a great experience; I’ve said that to a lot of my team mates at Spencer Lacrosse Club and the London Knights. It was a fantastic tournament, very well run.

“Losing in the final is never great but I was really pleased actually with the way the team turn things around having not won on the first weekend at all. And then we cam back for the knock-out stages and really defined our identity and put a few performances together.”

The prospect of working with Forge Men’s Head Coach, Conor Dockery, who led Forge to the women’s title at last year’s event is really exciting Tom ahead of The Fly 2023.

“It’ll be great. I know Conor really really well; he and I have been team mates in box lacrosse and then we’ve played against each other in the field game.

“I think we have a small pool of excellent coaches in this country who are doing it full time which allows them to get to a really strong level and Conor is one of those people so I’m really excited to learn from him and see the differences between him who does it for a living and me who does it on a sort of part-time basis.”

You can see Tom return to The Fly in 2023 at Rosslyn Park FC, London on 14 May, 21 May, and 4 June and tickets are available HERE.