Oh Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear – How the Women NEARLY (note Gentlemen, nearly) Snatched Defeat from the Jaws of Victory…..
25-21, 25-11, 16-25, 25-27, 17-15
After problems finding a venue (thanks Gerry for getting us one!) and then the Div 3 Mens match being cancelled by the opposition (P3 on a roll – 3 matches in a row now !), we had a bad feeling about this match……. Totally justified in the end.
With practically the whole squad available, with only Zalina away living the life cobana on a Mexican beach (arghhhhh), Dave’s two firing synapses were in overdrive – he could have powered the whole of the Edinburgh New Town with the amount of electricity being produced…. I say practically because Captain Fantastic, Rach, is a wee bit injured (shoulder), meaning that she got to crack open the Libero strip for the first time (we remembered to take the tag off before she ran on court).
Starting 6 were – Hannah, Roxanna, Elin, Katie, Glenda & Lucie
Well, what a start – first point an amazing block by Elin and Roxanna stuffed Troon’s number 6’s (their best player) 4 hit straight back down. Awesome ! But, it kinda went Pete Tong from there and we found ourselves 5 points down at 14-19, Dave calling a second time out to tell everyone to SLOW DOWN (not as young as the kids on the other side of the net), PLAY OUR GAME and note the fact that they were playing 6 up, 1 and 5 back defence but which was, actually pretty much in a row. Holes behind the block and go for the corners. As ever, our consistent Wonda Glenda soaked up this advice and hammered their defence doing her canny-wee roll shots…. Coupled with Katie’s run of services, we pulled back the deficit and won the set – 25-21. Phew.
By-the-way, we should mention at this point that the side of court we were playing on had the sun shining in, making the back of the court essentially a blind-spot, especially position 5… But, it was now Troon’s turn to sun-bathe.
Second set – Kamila, Emma, Katie, Glenda, Jo, Dianne
What a start – sun shining in position 5, so the ball (after a fantastic receive) went straight there and NUVOC won the point ! Oh no, not another fabulous first point by NUVOC ???? No ! We took Troons no 6 out of the whole set, with some fab front court play and wonderful pressure serving (including my own, may I add – that serve which looked as if it was going out on the righthandside of the court and then curved back in to land on the line – AWESOME, just wish I knew how I did it…). Final point – ladies, if I shout “I am out” – due to a diving dig to save the ball off the block (and floundering around like a dying fish) – DON’T pass the ball back to me. But, as you can tell this was ignored and somehow, a dig from laying-on-the-floor Emma, went over the net and landed between the 4 & 5 players. Job done, 25-11, Troon should have been totally demoralised now for the start of the 3rd set – how wrong were we….
Third set – Hannah, Roxanna, Katie, Glenda, Lucie, Dianne
All I can say is 1. that pesky sun, 2. that pesky no 6 and 3. LADIES SLOW DOWN AND PLAY OUR GAME…. Lost that set 16-25. Whoops. And yes, Dave was going nutz on the sideline (rightly so).
Fourth set – Hannah, Emma, Katie, Glenda, Lucie, Dianne
Come on girls – time to pull ourselves together. BUT NO, we went 4 points down (5-1) again. But, serving brought us back into it and we pulled level and two points ahead. A bit of a ding-dong battle, which was made easier for the Troon girls as they were on the sunny-side but the sun had decided to meditate behind a cloud (for the rest of the match), to the mid-point of the set, and then we feel asleep, again. We went 5 points behind (15-20) and once again, got a right good telling off by Dave (if there are any reports of strange flashing lights over Broughton St around 11.30am on Sat, it’s not UFOs or a rave at the Blue Moon Café, it was Dave’s neurons in overdrive…). However, a good kick up the buns was what we needed, plus Katie’s inspired net play - we pulled it back 23-23. We lost the point 23-24. We won the next 2 points 25-24 and up for the set – which we won – no we didn’t due to an “interesting” handling call. 25-25 – we blew it lost it 25-27…
Fifth set – Kamila, Roxanna, Katie, Dianne, Glenda & Lucie
A real nail-biter. I can’t actually say what happened here as I was hiding behind the sofa. But Troon did have match point at 14-15, but some unbelievable work by the team, topped off by Dianne’s fab middle-play, Katie almost breaking her hip diving in 6 to get the ball up (if you had some padding like me, Katie, you would have bounced back up !) meant we snatched the Win. 17-15. It really shouldn’t have been that hard, but what we can take away from this is that Dave used his new players a lot, to learn to play our system and to play with each other. A win is a win, but hey, ladies, let’s not make it so tough next time.
Roll on 29th November – c’mon the NUVOC….
Report caveat – throughout the match there were numerous substitutions, which I can’t remember, and I might have got some of the starting 6’s wrong as well.
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