DHG Match Report 2/10/05

Match Report DHG

Since I didn’t start playing for Marienlyst until last year, I have never really been a part of the local rivalry with DHG. With so many changes to both teams in the past few years it seems like that rivalry is pretty much dead and buried. No matter what the journalists write in the papers or what the coaches say, it just doesn’t have the feeling of a rivalry anymore.

The match itself wasn’t anything too exciting. The first set stayed even until around 16-16 mostly due to sloppy defense and uninspired serving from our side of the net. It wasn’t until the end of the set that we found a bit of aggression and could start to dictate the game a little bit more. It was clear from the start that DHG has quite a few beach players who maybe haven’t quite transitioned onto the hardcourt yet. They played quite a few shots and half speed hits that took us a little while to get used to. Eventually we figured it out and we weren’t really threatened after that.

The second and third set were more of the same. DHG has few options to attack with. It looked like the centers were having trouble connecting with Mio in the middle and that made it much easier for our centers to read and put up a stabile block. I don’t have any statistics in front of me here but I would guess that we had one or two blocks in the first set, four or five in the second and six or seven in the last and that made the biggest difference in the set scores. By the end of the match they had little left except to set the ball outside against a two-man block.

Our play throughout the match was still not consistent enough. We did enough to win today and there were moment when everything was functioning on a fairly high level. But I think in order to compete with the top competition in the Elite division we’ll have to play on a higher level for a longer period of time.

After five days and ten hours of sleep and about forty hours total of plane flights, Nathan Roberts got his home court debut yesterday and did a fine job in the few points he was in. Obviously, it is too early to tell what kind of a player he is but physically he looks promising. I think everyone on the team is looking forward to get out on the practice court tonight and see what he can bring to the team.

This of course was only the first match of the season but next weekend we already have a tough match against Aalborg in the pokal tournament. That one is going to be exciting.
If anyone missed it they should check the Kamp Referater section on volleynet where Jes Barkler posted an article about the match as well as a short tv clip. Looking forward to seeing everyone out in Marienlyst next week!