End of preparation tour

I'll start where I left off in my previous post on the preparation tour at the end of Asia Cup.

We next had another nightmare travel to Czech, I honestly can't remember the plane legs, but I think it was Ourmieh-Tehran-Abu Dhabi-london-Prague and then a 2-3 hr bus trip to where we were playing the matches. From memory it was about 30 hours all up.

We arrived in Czech to a very nice hotel and quickly got about getting back into training. The first 2 matches against Czech weren't our best, we were there abouts, but really struggled to finish of the sets when it counted. However it was refreshing for the guys to be back playing against a European team, it seemed that a lot of the guys seemed much more comfortable playing against a similar type team, and were able to employ their natural game style a lot better. (This in itself is kind of an issue considering we play in the Asian Zone!!)

By the 3rd match we had started to hit our straps, we played a good consistent game and won 3-0 against the Czechs. It was a good way to leave The Czech Republic and I think as a team that has played the Czechs a number of times over the last few years, I felt we really felt confident about our abilities to beat them on a consistent basis. Considering the quality of players they have at their disposal it was certainly a good sign.

Next was Poland, I had personally never actually been to Poland before, and I was really looking forward to playing in a country where Volleyball was the number 1 sport. The first match was played in Belchatow, which for those of you who don't know is currently the defending Polish champions for about the last 5 years. The first match against the Polish B team was a close fought affair, we traded the first 2 sets before Poland took the advantage taking the 3rd. The match look destined for a 4th set as we had run away to a 16-9 lead. However it was not to be. One of the Polish pass-hitters had a terrific serving match and went on a nice run towards the end of the set, this coupled with some poor play on our side gifted Poland the set and the match. It was really disappointing to lose in this way, and like at Asia Cup I was beginning to see a trend in our team not being able to finish sets that we really should.

the 2nd match was a closer affair, we again split the first 2 sets before the Polish team took the 3rd, the 4th looked doomed until we started to make a comeback towards the end of the set, however we fell short to lose that one 25-22.

So all in all not a great tour in Poland either, 2 winnable games gone begging, however we had a chance to redeem ourselves over in Argentina.

First match in Poland

We had a one night stay in Heathrow followed by a flight to Buenos Aires Via Sao Paulo. Then about a 4-5 hr drive to Bolivar where the top club team in Argentina was situated. Bolivar is a tiny town of about 20,000 people, I had wondered how this team had become a powerhouse club!!!! I now know after speaking to my Argentinian team mate here in Italy that the club is funded by one extremely rich individual, and also that the players live in beautiful apartments in Buenos Aires and travel to Bolivar the day before the game to play!

However back to the matches, the first match was against Argentina. In all honesty they were too good for us on the day. They played consistent error-free Volleyball and we simply did not have the game on the day to respond.

After this we had a day break before the match with Tunisia. However the night before about 4 of the guys and 2 coaches went down with a pretty nasty stomach bug, apparently a lot of the toilets got a work out that night. By the afternoon Joel our Libero was unable to play the match, also Igor and Adam had started to feel bad also. Johnny our other Passer was already sick in bed!!! So we ended up borrowing a 16 year old libero for the match.

Adam didn't make it through warm-up leaving us with myself, Igor and our new Libero Bruno as the only 3 reception players .

We started really well getting a great number of blocks in the 1st set, we counter attacked well and Tunisia were no match as we took the set easily. Things were looking much the same in the 2nd before Igor had to sub himself of and go throw up, not to be seen for the rest of the match! Enter our new Pass-Hitter Shane Alexander. Yes.....Shane is a setter and had not Pass-Hit since u/16s Newcastle in 2001. So it was an interesting experience trying to organize a passing line-up to hid Shane a bit, as well as doing it with a Libero who didn't speak English. However we did it pretty well, Paul Carroll showed some versatility to step in and nail some passes as well. We won the 2nd and were doing fine in the 3rd, at about the midway point of the 3rd I was starting not to feel so well. fortunately we managed to finish the match in 3.

At the completion of the match Bruno got a nice ride on Shane's shoulders over to his family and friends who were stoked with his efforts.

Somthing you won't often see, an Argentinian

Libero in an Australian uniform and our

Opposite in the passing line-up.

I still didn't feel great and by early the next morning I had my head in the toilet also, taking the grand total to 8 sick players and 3 coaches. Igor and myself got too spend some quality time together in our room for about 24hrs before the sickness subsided. By the time we got out of Bolivar and to our next destination in Tandil everyone was more or less feeling better.

In Tandil we played Tunisia again. Tunisia played a good game against us, they went for broke on everything and counter-attacked at a very high level. However we kept our nerve and even after making a lot of substitutions to get the right balance we made less errors when it counted and took the match in 5. Paul played a blinder of a game taking advantage of some weaker blockers to finish in excess of 30 points.

Again the last match against Argentina was not memorable. Argentina served and blocked really well and although every set was close we couldn't find a way to get the points we needed to edge in front. Argentina 3-0 to finish the tour.

So when I look at the tour now all in all it was pretty disappointing. Losing in the 1/4s at Asia Cup, only winning the 1 match in Europe and 2 matches against Tunisia in Argentina was not a great result. We still had a lot of work to do at home and in Italy before World Champs.

They love their Volleball in Argentina, posing

for a photo with one of the ball girls.