National League Division 1, 1st December 2002, Warwick Riga v Sheffield
Warwick Riga 3 Sheffield 1 (23-25 25-21 25-16 25-17)
Last Sunday Warwick Riga won an important game against Sheffield in four
sets, 3-1 (23-25, 25-21, 25-16, 25-17). The Warwick team have won their last 5
matches and are now in third place in the Men’s Division 1 of the national
volleyball league. This win sets them up nicely for the home game against second
placed London Docklands in two weeks time (Saturday, 14th of December, 5 pm
warm-up for a 5.30 start)
In Sunday’s game Warwick Riga had a lacklustre start whilst Sheffield began with
a number of blistering serves. Riga seemed surprised by the opposition’s serves
and could not get the ball to their setter Phil Wyles. Sheffield managed to make
fewer mistakes altogether and Warwick Riga was chasing the set without closing
the 4 – 5 point gap. A Riga comeback towards the end of the set came to late to
save the set and Sheffield won deservedly 23-25.
The second set started promising with an early lead for Warwick (5-0) which was
given away too easily to hand the initiative back to Sheffield. A timeout from
Riga coach Tom Young was required when the score reached 8-9. Some tactical
changes were made and in particular the Riga block and defence started to
improve. Kees de Hoogh and John Gilling finished a number of rallies with
impressive hits and Dave Nason created difficulties for Sheffield by moving his
serves around. Sheffield started to make more mistakes under pressure and the
set went Riga’s way 25-21.
The third and fourth set showed a very similar pattern. Sheffield were still
playing well at times but the visitors made too many mistakes to keep the
initiative and sustain pressure on Warwick Riga. Warwick, on the other side kept
pressure on the serve and created more opportunities for their attackers. Riga’s
setter Phil Wyles distributed the sets brilliantly and John Gilling and Kees de
Hoogh in particular were hitting the floor on Sheffield’s side with increasing
regularity. In both the third and fourth set a comfortable margin was
established early on and the sets were won 25-16 and 25-17, respectively.
Afterwards, captain/coach Tom Young was more pleased with the team effort than
the technical level of the game. ‘We didn’t start off very well and Sheffield
was not giving easy points away in the first set’ he said. ‘We started to play
better as a team in the second set and Phil Wyles was finding the scoring
players throughout the last three sets although defensively we still have to
improve our game.’ ‘Next week we’ll be playing Wessex in Poole and on the 14th
of December we have a home game against second placed London Docklands.’ he
added, ‘our aim is to perform well in that game and I’m very confident that we
will if we carry on improving our game as we have over the last 5 weeks.’
Tom Spijkers