NVL Men - UEA Norwich (A) Match Report 2009-10

Tendring V.C. 3 – 0 UEA Norwich

25-16, 25-16,25-17

Report by Alex Porter

Tendring Win East Anglia Derby

After a confidence boosting win against Guildford International, Tendring were ready to take on their UEA in the east Anglian Derby. This match would be an interesting affair as two of last year's Tendring's players were now based at UEA. Coach Porter had scouted UEA earlier in the day when they played Guildford and believe that Tendring would win the game and probably score half of UEA's points, which hopefully wouldn't be to many.

Set 1

From point one Chinnery's passing was inch perfect, which gave Davies a choice of 4 hitters. At 3-2 Dove decided to introduce himself to the game with a powerful cross court kill. J. Everett then went back and served, and boy did he serve, within 2 minutes the score was 8-3 to Tendring. Davies felt left out with the hitting and at 11-5 nailed a second ball on to the floor. UEA started to look like 6 rabbits in headlight, not sure which way to go as all 6 players were hitting balls at them. All 6 players had scored kills leaving libero Chinnery as the odd one out. Not for long, as at 14-6 Tendring had to scramble in defence Chinnery volleyed the third ball over into the middle of court, only for the headlights to be flashing at the rabbits again, as all 6 UEA players stood and watched the ball hit the floor. I'm not sure what was bigger Chinnery's smile or UEA's embarrassment as they'd just lost a point to a Libero. Dove followed this up with a huge block. Davies then scored an ace but served in the net with his second. J. Everett gave Tendring set point by hammering a quick attack in the corner, which left Widlarz to score set point with a dinky roll shot over the top of the block.

Set 2

This was the J. Everett and Dove set, by the time the score reached 16-9 Dove and J. Everett had scored all but two of Tendring's points. UEA's attacks and servers were notably weaker than Guildford's which gave Chinnery a chance to practice his perfecting free ball passing. Jones and Widlarz had a couple of nice shots each that were touched by the UEA defence but couldn't be converted. At 20-13 the writing was on the wall for UEA, when Dove jumped to early for a hit and splaffed the ball over using only the tips of his fingers which resulted in a point. Even when something went wrong for Tendring, they still managed to win the point. The set was put to an end by Dove smashing a ball cross court.

Set 3

During the intermission Porter instructed his men to have some fun by trying some new things out, giving him men the option of running combinations, going for their jump serves anything that would push their own boundaries. J. Everett and Dove carried on where they left off with a Kill followed by an overpass by J. Everett and 6 serves in a row by Dove. Jones got in on the action with a kill to 1 taking the scores to 10-2. There was a period of scrappy play by both teams that allowed UEA to recoup a few points but Widlarz made sure with 2 kills from 3 attacks that UEA wouldn't catch up to much. Todd then got front court and organised a cross over attack to give Tendring a 18-11 lead. For the next point Chinnery had to run almost into the bench to retrieve a ball that Todd smashed cross court. Dove and Todd both changed the speed of the game by tipping the next two balls which lured UEA's defence further into court only for Widlarz to power bomb the next attack cross court to make the score 23-13. Jones then scored an ace only for it to be disallowed . Widlarz rolled a ball over the block to give Tendring match point. which duly scored by J. Everett blocking a UEA attack.

After looking at the statistics of today's game, it shows Tendring were clearly a level above. Tendring scored more points from their serve in one set than UEA scored in the whole game.