After a season of intensive training, two Truro High School hockey players’ hard work has resulted in the promise of national level competition.

Amy Shaw, 15, from Helston who plays for Falmouth Hockey Club, and Lucy Coombs, 16 from Truro, have been selected to train in the U17 and U18 Junior Regional Performance Centre for hockey following a rigorous selection process that lasted several months.

Against over 100 of the county’s top female players, the girls were picked to attend the regional tournament in Bristol. Here national assessors and coaches selected the top players from the entire South West to represent their region at the performance centre. Only 30 girls were selected for each age group for the training in Exeter.

The girls travel around 100 miles and spend up to 12 hours on the pitch every week. Real team players, they also participate in school fixtures and regularly support the teaching staff with the Prep School hockey club alongside their hockey commitments.

Last year, Amy reached the final stage of the selection process for the U16 England Hockey team and was fast tracked to training in January because of this success. Lucy has been training with Cornwall County every week since September with matches every Saturday and the girls also play for their local clubs which are Falmouth and Truro respectively.

They will now get to train at state-of-the-art facilities on the Exeter University campus with six intensive days of hockey practice spread out from June to September as part of the Exeter Leopards team. They will take part in practical "on pitch" training, alongside classroom based theory lessons.

Amy said: “I’m so proud to have made it to this stage of the process for the second year running. It’s definitely been hard with a lot of training and I really want to show that I’ve improved since last year. Every year that I try out I make it one stage further. I’m hoping this year with lots of hard work that the pattern will continue and I will be chosen to play at a national level.”

Amy's mum, Catie Shaw, added: “I am absolutely thrilled that Amy has been selected to attend the junior regional performance training sessions. She has been supported every step of the way by the teaching staff at the High School and at Falmouth Hockey Club. She is now reaping the rewards of all her hard work. I am one proud mum.”

If the girls impress at the training camp, they have the opportunity to be selected for the tier one national and regional tournaments in September.