London Tuskers vs Putney VC Round 1

A string of circumstances allowed me to watch London Tuskers compete against Putney VC for the first time. London Tuskers is the club I play for, although I do not coach the London ladies team.  Putney VC is a club that I coach, although not at matches.  It was my first time watching either of them competing in the league.

Watching Tuskers was incredibly frustrating!  They got the gist of the game (dig, set, spike) but there is so much more to that.  There are many little situations where they make the wrong decisions.  For example, being in the wrong defence positions, not stepping back on a free ball and the setter going forward, back court not releasing their front court hitters, the setter not sprinting to the target, not covering the hit etc.  We constantly had to give concurrent feedback during the rally.  For those who don’t know, that is bad because they rely on that feedback rather than their own.  They did have two fantastic outside hitters (one of which is an absolute star) and other decent players so the potential is there but presently not fully realised.  Frustrating!

When I did watch Putney, it was a pleasure to watch.  It is because they were incredibly organised and they did the things they should be doing.  I don’t remember a point where the ball hit the ground because there were confusion on who are going to take it.  The epitome of this was one point where they passed badly but the ball was up high.  Nobody stepped in to take it (they instead transitioned to hit) because they knew the setter would get there.  And she did get there.

Putney won it in 3 sets.  Whilst Tuskers did get some good momentum in parts, they were pegged back by some bad service reception (or Putney’s good serving) and their disorganision.

In the end, I win both ways.  However, this particular result means I can say:

*** Update 2 February 2021 | Having read back on this, it still confirms my belief that the first priority when coaching a team, especially a new team, is to organise them in the various systems of play (reception, defence etc).  I employed this when I coached City University London (see my 2015/16 reflection) and I haven’t really deviated since ***