Japan

Well it's always great fun to play in Japan. They love their Volleyball and consistently draw crowds to any tournament. We had a 3 day tournament against University teams from Japan and China as well as the Thai national team.
As the games were a while ago I wont be able to go into to much detail. We travelled an hour and a half to play the Chinese team. In an un-airconditioned stadium we took care of the young Chinese team in 3 easy sets. Our kill % was high and the Chinese had little opportunity to assert themeselves in this match. Also we had one of the funnier moments of the tour (after we found out he was ok) as on match point the Chinese setter set the passer-hitter who was on the ground, because he was on the ground Paul had commited on the quick, and since Ralph was read blocking he turned and ran straight into Pauls elbow and nearly knocked himself out.....dangerous sport Volleyball!

The second match was against the Japanese. After seeing them play Thailand we believed they would be the biggest challenge between us and the title. We started well winning the first pretty well and letting our block do the talking. The Japs stepped up in the 2nd, taking an early lead and eventually got over the line to 23. The 3rd set was all Japan, the opposite and one of the passer-hitters were hitting high and hard and we werent able to control them. We had some big problems with our attack and we lost the 3th badly. So we swung the changes in the 4th, the 2 youngest players Will and Johnny came on and the team responded taking an early lead and when Japan looked like fighting back we surged again to take the set. The 5th started well and soon we were up by a good 3-4 points. We continued this and didn't let the Japs get back into it to close out the match in 5 sets. Certainly not our best game for the tour, but a win is a win and we had to prepare for our game the next day.

The Thailand game was pretty cruisy in the end (well as cruisy as an international volleyball game can get) Our block and serve intimidated the smaller Thais and we won all the sets comfortably to take revenge on our loss to the them back in 2005.

So a successfull tournament and a good win for the boys. We spent that night having a celebratory beer and looking through the blunders, accidents, good plays and bad plays from all the matches throughout the tour. I don't think I had ever laughed so hard in my life. It was a great way to end the tour!

Phill loves Japan! Why because he can find Volleyballers shorter than him!!

Shane and Phill stirring up the crowd.

Igor and Shane celebrating after the win.

The boys with the trophy