"We will not receive any free points from the opponent, we just have to learn how to hit" said Poland's coach Jacek Nawrocki after his teams 3-1 win over Czech Republic.
Zielona Góra, Poland, June 4, 2016 - Poland showed good style registering an uneasy win over Czech Republic on the second day of FIVB WGP Group 2B tournament in Zielona Góra. The host team's coach Jacek Nawrocki remains concentrated on improving his players' game.
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Jacek Nawrocki, Poland coach: This national team is completely new and still in construction. 90% of our focus is on improving our game technically. We have only few players who know how to play on top European level, but there is also a lot of players who need to improve their technique. The most important thing today is that girls showed a lot of character and heart. They really held it together mentally, because after the 1st set and during the break between the 2nd and 3rd set it wasn't easy. I'm happy about that. I'm also happy that that game showed we can fight for the victory till the very end. The girls have to know we will not receive any free points from the opponent. We just have to learn how to hit.
I think that Puerto Rico is a favourite to win 2nd Division of the World Grand Prix this year. We have played against them last year and even before that, when we had stronger players, we also had troubles against them. There is no particular thing to improve for tomorrow, because we have to play better in every aspect of volleyball. I'm happy that thanks to good performance by Martyna Grajber we went smoothly from an offensive style to playing with better reception and thanks to that we managed to play more with our middle blockers in the second part of the game.
Alexander Waibl, Czech Republic coach: In the first set we weren’t in the game, we were too slow in our actions, missed some easy balls in defence. The girls came back in the second set. I think we played next sets really well. We managed to win the second one and were really close in the third and fourth but we had problems with reception in two rotations and couldn’t get a kill. At the same time, Polish team was very strong in block and defence, and attacked a bit stronger. Those small things made a big difference today.
Despite of a lost game, I’m totally happy with my team’s performance today, because our players are young and inexperienced. Four of girls that appeared today on the court had only played in Czech Republic. For me it is really important that our young team gains experience and I can see progress in their play.
Berenika Tomsia, Poland: We are really happy that we managed to win 3-1. This match today was really hard for us and full of nervous situations, so I think that we can be happy after winning in the 4th set. These are our first matches in this roster but the most important thing for us is that with this new squad we can pull a win anyway and every girl who enters the court gives her 100%. We didn't see the match played by Puerto Rico, but they are for sure considered a favourite here. It's a strong team, but we will see how things unfold tomorrow.
Tereza Rossi, Czech Republic captain: In the first set we played pretty nervous. After that we just let it go, because we had nothing to lose and we started to play our volleyball. Maybe the Polish girls underestimated us a bit after easily winning the first set. They started to make some mistakes probably due to tiredness, their main spiker Tomsia couldn’t score anymore. At the same time our team caught the positive flow and we started to play really well. In the fourth set we were ahead of Poles and hoped for a tie breaker but then nervousness appeared in our game, we made some errors and finally lost that set and match.