It was a challenging double-header in the Super 8s for Team Northumbria volleyball men and women as they made the long journey south to face Polonia and Wessex.
It was a mixed bag of results against Polonia on Saturday as the women succumbed to a fifth set defeat but TN’s men continued their unbeaten run in the league with a straight sets win.
TN’s ladies were slow to start in the first set of the game but quickly found their form in the second. The teams were pretty evenly matched for most of the game but tiredness started to set in and the home side took advantage.
The men’s game was a more straightforward affair. Having challenged TN’s men in the first two sets, Polonia appeared to really struggle in the third, making several serve and receive errors that resulted in TN gaining easy points and helped them open up a seven-point lead against the home side.
It was a costly error – and one that the Londoners couldn’t recover from, despite a valiant effort.
“The atmosphere was really intense,” said TN head coach Dave Goodchild. “Crowds of people, drums, noise, it was live on Polish TV and it was hot but it’s a great place to play and coach.
“Unfortunately the girls lost in a five setter. They lost the fifth set but we realised where we went wrong.
“We’ve all learnt from this and we’ve reflected as a team and staff. Polonia are a good team but we know that every game we play, if we play well, we’ll win.”
It was with this mindset that the teams went in to Sunday’s games with Wessex with both sides managing to take the spoils.
“The men had a really tough game,” added Goodchild. “Wessex are a very strong and powerful team.
“We lost the first set. We made some errors in serve reception and our block defence wasn’t where it needed to be but we refocused, made some slight changes in our strategy and went from strength to strength.
“We had a couple of bad injuries this weekend. Matt White broke a finger so it’s going to rule him out for six weeks. Federico [Pagliara] has an ankle strain so he will potentially miss the big game against Sheffield Hallam on Wednesday so that’s a blow.
“The women won 3-0 and bounced back from the Polonia match. I originally played themajority of my bench which was brilliant so we got everyone in the game.
“It was a tough day in London – it was physically demanding. But we have a lot of good players who haven’t had a starting opportunity and they got that chance against Wessex. They played well so I was really pleased.”
Natalie Martin
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