First 2 matches, Obama and the refs...

First of all sorry for the lack of updates this past week. With the season opener and a lot going on in the club at the same time, I had a hard time getting to the keyboard..

We lost last weeks opener against the reigning champions who proved to be way further in their cooperation, communication and rhythm than we were. At the same time the players looked tense and uncomfortable on the court, so it did not take Holte IF(now 2-0) long to break down our sideout and thereby basically winning the match very easy 3-0.
A huge disappointment for me and the players since we felt ready to perform and we were prepared for what Holte were bringing to the table. But failing to execute our chances along side an unbalanced block/defence, really left us with very little chance in that match.

Second match of the season and again against one of the contenders for the titel this year. BrøndbyVolley(now 1-1) who finished 4th last year after a dramatic loss in the semifinals against our team Fortuna-Odense(now 1-1), is coming in to the new season with a lot of changes to their squad. No less than 4 new foreigners are what they have signed, and we were of course very excited to go up against them all…

After last weekends loss in the season opener in a match far from the level we know we are able to produce, we have spend all week with full focus on our block/defence and converting digs into points.
So coming into the match this Saturday, we had full focus on our own side of the net and our preparations had been 100% about ourselves as a team, and not about our opponents.

We took charge very early in the 1st game and scored 11 points in the first 6 rotations. And the result of our full week of focussing on block/defence was dominating the picture completely. We still were struggling with our rhythm in offense, but our hitters today chose to “take the bone in the other hand” and were all tooling at a high level.
We win 1st game comfortably 25-22.

2nd game starts off best for Brøndby, but we quickly get back on track from the 1st game, and once we found our rhythm it seemed like they had a hard time finding answers to get us out of our comfort zone. Making points in every serve for 6 rotations gave us a solid lead, and a serving streak from first Katherine(OH) and later Caley(OH) gave us a very safe win 25-13.
Dorthe(S) who in the late 1st game was starting to get the middles very much involved, were now playing very comfortably all round. And with the good passing we provided she was setting very solid throughout the game.

Being up 2-0 the 3rd game is usually a tough one and today was no exception. Brøndby came with more spirit and will having their backs against the wall, and we were struggling a bit in the early game. However with a few streaks in first Juliane’s(MB) and then Dorthe’s(S) serve gave us a 5 point lead. Up about 21-16 it was time to close the game and thereby the match, we ran in to 3 serving errors in a row and before we knew it Brøndby had a gamepoint at 24-23. In this part of the match the ref. decided to bring 4 completely wrong calls to the table leaving both sides of the net in extreme frustration, but we kept our cool and closed the match 27-25 where Kristen(S) came in and made 2 digs and 2 blocks in the last 7 balls of the game setting up our win.


Obama and the pack in Copenhagen

As many of you probably know, U.S. president Obama was in Copenhagen hoping to influence the IOC voters to vote for Chicago as Olympic city 2016. Success or not I’ll let you decide, but for us his visit was very exciting indeed. 2 members of his wolf pack decided to stay behind and came to our match in Brøndby. For security reason I can’t give out their names ;0) but in terms of motivation, having them on the sideline this Saturday along side my mom, really gave that extra which we needed, and I can’t thank them enough for finding time in their busy program to stop by. And to Mr. Obama I can only say from my heart “… I’ll never forget him THE LEADER OF THE PACK” :0)


A new line on technique or maybe not…!

I have to admit I was one of the people who was very excited about the refs announcing to ease up on the technical demand on our players, I have always wanted the game to be decided by the players and not the ref., but has it really changed?
What we saw in our match against Holte a week ago the demands had evidently changed, and after that match I told myself to expect that from now on.
This weekends match against Brøndby however, was a different story. The match began as the last one where EVERYTHING was allowed, but the from mid of the 2nd game the ref decided to change his line by making a very bad double call on our setter, and from then on he literally called everything remotely close to a lift or a double. After the match I wanted to talk to him about it, but I decided not to cuz at the end of the day the line proves to be as it has been always – very much depending on who the ref is and how he feels in the particular moment. Now I am not saying all refs are not consistent, some are consistently hard on technique and some are loose, but degree of confusement is high.

What is the new line if there is one and what can we as coaches and players expect?

I really hope the refs talk more this year than what has been the case other years, cuz if we are trying to find a new line closer to the international line, then it should be consistent from ref. to ref. and it should be published so everyone knows what to expect.

That is all for now, next weekend we are playing FrederiksbergVolley(now 1-0) at home and I look very much forward seeing my good friend William who is coaching the Frederiksberg team.

“Today we took many small steps as individuals but one big one as a team, and that is what makes the difference between winning or losing”