Training day arrival gear ;-) We've played a lot of games since my last post. Which is great because in pre-season you want to get as much match play in as you can. Our first weekend tournament wasn't the best result. Unfortunately we lost all 3 matches we played, but considering we hadn't really practiced much together it wasn't that bad. 2 of the teams we played against will be our enemies come time for the Dutch season to start, so it was good to see what we will be up against during the league play. During the next week we played a match against a team who finished in the top 6 last season (Taurus). This match was a huge improvement for our team. I think this was the first time we had our whole team together and it's pretty cool to see the improvements in such a short amount of time. We went on to lose that match in 5 sets, but it was the best we've played for my whole time here, and wins and losses in September aren't to important. The following weekend we played another tournament in Dodrecht (I think that's how it's spelled). This was against 2 teams from the second division. These were 2 of the more competitive second division teams. And so far I've been really impressed at the quality of the second division teams. Usually back home in Australia there can be a huge drop off in levels between first and second divisions, but these second division teams can play. You'll usually find a few players who could be good enough to play in the first division, however they don't want a full time training load because they also want to live and have things like a family. The next week we had a few more practices then we headed off to a tournament in Belgium for the day. When someone usually says to me that I'm going to another country to play a tournament, I'd assume that being from Australia I'm in for a long trek. But it's only a 2 hour drive, so we drove to Belgium and back in the same day. I'm trying to explain to my team mates that 2 hours of driving from Melbourne and you'll hopefully be in bendigo, still a long way away from even reaching another states border. Unfortunately we didn't get to do any sightseeing but it was still good to see a little bit of Belgium on the road. We didn't win the tournament but it was definitely a learning experience and it gave us a huge direction of what to work on in practices. Another practice match during the week against another league team SSV. This match was played at the Top Sports stadium, which in one word was 'sick'. During the year we play half our home matches at this venue and I'm super pumped cause it's a very nice stadium. Check out the photo below.
Besides all the volleyball, I'm still continuing to settle down. The club gave us bicycles to get around, because despite that fact that I haven't seen one person wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle, everyone rides bicycles. It's only about a 10 minute bike ride to our practice facility, so since it's still nice and warm we're enjoying as much vitamin D as we can until the sun goes away and it starts raining for weeks on end. I also went to a cycling school which helps. Besides our night practices we have also had some team events. The sponsor of the team Arbo Rotterdam had a cool function at his headquarters. His office is pretty cool. It's an exact replica of Winston Churchill's office. Their is also a bar at the office too. Not sure how you get work down with a bar but it's pretty cool. It was also a great chance to wear the team suits we have. Before I got to Holland I didn't know that team suits could be a thing but they're probably one of the coolest things going around.
Despite all that pre-season action of winning and losing, playing good and bad it's all really irrelevant. Our season opener is Oct 4th, so that's when the real journey begins. If I can find a stream I'll pass it on. It's all getting pretty excited leading into that first game. Everyone is fairly unsure of what the ceiling of this team is. Which is great because being a new team their is no ceiling. With so much room to grow, we can continue to improve during the season.
Peace out hombres.
Besides all the volleyball, I'm still continuing to settle down. The club gave us bicycles to get around, because despite that fact that I haven't seen one person wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle, everyone rides bicycles. It's only about a 10 minute bike ride to our practice facility, so since it's still nice and warm we're enjoying as much vitamin D as we can until the sun goes away and it starts raining for weeks on end. I also went to a cycling school which helps. Besides our night practices we have also had some team events. The sponsor of the team Arbo Rotterdam had a cool function at his headquarters. His office is pretty cool. It's an exact replica of Winston Churchill's office. Their is also a bar at the office too. Not sure how you get work down with a bar but it's pretty cool. It was also a great chance to wear the team suits we have. Before I got to Holland I didn't know that team suits could be a thing but they're probably one of the coolest things going around.
Despite all that pre-season action of winning and losing, playing good and bad it's all really irrelevant. Our season opener is Oct 4th, so that's when the real journey begins. If I can find a stream I'll pass it on. It's all getting pretty excited leading into that first game. Everyone is fairly unsure of what the ceiling of this team is. Which is great because being a new team their is no ceiling. With so much room to grow, we can continue to improve during the season.
Peace out hombres.
A small step up from SVC!
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