A disappointing weekend for Warwick saw both the men's and women's teams lose in straight sets to Malory. Following the defeat of Riga Women to Malory, the men looked to even the score, but an impressive Malory team proved to be too strong for a Riga side lacking recent match experience, and won each set by a comfortable margin, 25-18 25-21 25-21.
Early on in set 1 Malory were able to establish a comfortable lead with unanswered attacks from Morph Bowes and Steve Fee. The Warwick passing unit, normally so strong, were not as efficient as usual forcing Phil Wyles to push the ball predictably through the wing, allowing Malory to recycle on numerous occasions. Following an early time out by Warwick and a lot of shouting by coach Tom Young, Warwick began to play and were able to match Malory point for point. At 22-17 with Warwick unable to claw any of the early ground they had lost in the set, Riga made a double substitution, bringing on Setter Andy Collins and ex-Malory, and new signing, John Hedlund. Hedlund s’ NVL experience showed instantly with his first attack for Riga finding the floor with ease. However any hope of Riga retrieving the set quickly evaporated with a series of errors and a Malory stuff block.
A disappointing first set did not dampen the Riga spirit and they hit the floor in the 2nd set with a couple of strong attacks from Kees de Hoogh and Ed Ekanem. However with the Riga passing unit still struggling, Wyles’ options remained limited allowing Malory to form a strong block on many occasions. Together with an injury sustained to libero Mark Fearn early on in the set that was starting to effect his mobility, the pass failed to improve significantly, and Malory pushed into a slender lead. At 19-17 Matt Howe was brought on to try and improve the pass, but a couple of good pick ups and good passing allowed Malory's’ Richard Dobell to split the Riga block with ease giving Malory the 2nd set.
