Phil Wyles: able to use all attacking options
Prosport NVL Division 1, 20th September 2003
City of Salford NW VC I 2 Warwick Riga 3 (16-25 25-18 15-25 25-23 10-15)
| The men’s volleyball team of Warwick Riga won their first match of the new season beating City of Salford in a five setter. The team has high expectations of the new season and are determined to improve on last years third place in the final standings of the National League First Division. The team has been strengthened with the arrival of four new players; two new outside hitters Chris Anderson and Canadian Andy Lynn, middle hitter Andy Elliot and England Junior Matthew Howe who has joined the team as a libero. | ||
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Phil Wyles: able to use all attacking options |
The Riga team started exceptionally well in the first set with a lot of attractive volleyball and plenty of combinations. The service reception was very accurate and this enabled setter Phil Wyles the opportunity to run all his attacking options and get his hitters involved right from the off. An early lead was gradually extended and the set was won very comfortably (16-25). | |
| The second set showed a different Salford team who came out of the blocks eager to disrupt the Riga fluency established in the first set & they managed this with some pressurised serving & intelligent attacking options. The home team opened up an early lead through their own good play but aided by some very complacent work by the visitors, the Riga team were now showing some weaknesses and uncertainties in the service reception and the fluency of the first set disappeared rapidly allowing Salford to level the game at one set all (25-18). | ||
| The following two sets were a repetition of the first ones. Riga played very well in the third set and seemed to take control of the match back into their own hands. The set was taken convincingly (15-25). Disappointingly the hard fought initiative was handed back to Salford at the beginning of the fourth set by bad reception of the service and a lack of confidence from the attackers. Salford took an 6-1 lead and kept the lead until the end of the set (23-19). The Warwick team suddenly stepped up their performance, aided by some very choice words from coach Tom Young & nearly snatched the set as they came back to 23-23 after some good team play and difficult serving from Andy Elliot. However, Salford to their credit kept their nerve coming up with an excellent defensive recovery & then block at the crucial time to take the match into a deciding set. |
Andy Elliot: difficult serving |
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| The Riga team started the fifth set in the same fighting fashion as they finished the fourth one. Good attacking from Andy Lynn and Kees de Hoogh combined with good blocking by John Gilling and Tom Spijkers resulted in an 8-3 lead halfway through the set. Salford lacked the stamina to come back and the final score of 10-15 was a fair representation of the different teams. | ||
| Coach Tom Young was afterwards pleased that the first game was in the bag although he was surprised it took five sets. ‘I’m disappointed that we started the fourth set as we did’, he explained, ‘we failed to find a solution when we got stuck on certain rotations and that illustrates the inexperience of the team and that we have a number of new players.’ He added that if this situation ever re-occurs the team has to react far more quickly, changing the reception line up to cope with the popular modern game tactic of power jump serving & varied float serving at this level! He finished on a positive note saying that ‘the game against Salford was a good kick up the backside & allows us the opportunity to sort out one or two key areas in training ready for the bigger challenges that lie ahead in the coming weeks. I’m very hopeful for the season as this team has the potential to do exceptionally well in all competitions. | ||
| The next game will be played in Warwick’s St. Nicholas Park Sport Centre on Saturday 27th September against the current league leaders, Sheffield. Warm-up begins at 6pm whilst the official game will start at 6.30pm. The women’s first team of Warwick Riga will play their game earlier in the afternoon against their old rivals Cleobury and this game starts at 2.30pm. Entrance to both games is free and every visitor is guaranteed two enjoyable games of volleyball, so please come along and witness it all. | ||
Tom Spijkers