Game 2 DOS ’46 3 vs Dalto 4
Our first home game and a chance to play a competition match at a sports field we are more familiar with. After a solid training the evening before, we were looking forward to putting together a better performance than the previous week. Instead of the road trip from last week, we had a short five-minute fiets ride to our game venue today. We were also joined by Cam, Rosa’s boyfriend, who has now arrived in the Netherlands as well!
Home games are always well supported, especially for the 1st and 2nd teams, but we had a group of supporters there for our game as well. Maybe because it was a chance to check out these crazy foreigners they had heard about.
With the usual pre-game preparations completed, organising yourself and shooting at half time of the game before, it was time to filter into the meeting room for the team talk. Once again, Coops and I had difficulty following the majority of the talk (I trust that in one of these reports it will say we followed the team talk fully!) but Roger looked after these kiwis by translating into English. Needless to say through our whole Korfball experience so far there have been many jokes about English, translations, meanings and pronunciations!
We knew we had a tough challenge in front of us today with the Dalto 4 team comprised mostly of former players from their first and second teams with vast Korfball experience and skill. Youth, speed, energy and accuracy were going to be key today for us to compete with our more experienced opponents. Coops was having her first start with Vera, Richard and Jordy in the attack vak (division) while I was starting in verdediging (defence) with Youri, Milanne and Jarolien.
Conditions were overcast and the drizzle was holding off, making for pleasant playing weather. The game started with both teams feeling each other out but after trading a goal each it became clear we were in for a tough day as Dalto started to assert their dominance with some very accurate distance shooting. While our defence was more solid than last week, making less mistakes, Dalto were still able to keep their side of the scoreboard turning over at regular intervals by playing simple but very accurate Korfball topped of with great shooting. Compared with our previous performance against Wageningen, we were able to create more scoring opportunities on attack but were not able to convert these chances frequently. Solid defence from Dalto also forced us into taking some longer shots and our first half was punctuated by a number of poor passes in attack. It was exciting to see Coops open her scoring account, threading through a nice 4m shot dropping off behind the korf. At half time Dalto led 7-16.
The second half started with myself scoring a running in shot, after some nice lead up work by the rest of the vak. However a similar pattern to the first half began to emerge, Dalto quickly adding to their tally with more accurate distance shooting. Our attack was certainly more accurate in the second half with improved passing, but the shots just not dropping with the regularity we needed. I managed to add one more goal, a short shot, to my tally before being subbed off after three quarters of the game. Coops continued to run strongly throughout the game, building on the experience from her time on court last week to finish out a full 70-minute game (in the outdoor competition we play 35 minutes halves). Dalto’s scoring slowed as the game wore on, eventually winning 16-26.
Today we were quite simply out shot by a more experienced and accurate team. I felt our performance was better than last week by creating more attacking opportunities and having a better mental performance throughout the game despite falling behind early. Personally I certainly felt more comfortable on the field today in understanding my role and how to best use my strengths. This will only improve with more training and matches, hopefully leading to a few more goals and better contribution to the teams performance. Coops said in the post-match interview “while the team has not seemed to gel completely and play to our full potential for our first two games of the season I think that it will only get better. We will improve overall once we get more of a feel for each other and how each other likes to play. I’m excited to see the improvements of the team throughout the competition”.
Lorenzo
Our first home game and a chance to play a competition match at a sports field we are more familiar with. After a solid training the evening before, we were looking forward to putting together a better performance than the previous week. Instead of the road trip from last week, we had a short five-minute fiets ride to our game venue today. We were also joined by Cam, Rosa’s boyfriend, who has now arrived in the Netherlands as well!
Home games are always well supported, especially for the 1st and 2nd teams, but we had a group of supporters there for our game as well. Maybe because it was a chance to check out these crazy foreigners they had heard about.
With the usual pre-game preparations completed, organising yourself and shooting at half time of the game before, it was time to filter into the meeting room for the team talk. Once again, Coops and I had difficulty following the majority of the talk (I trust that in one of these reports it will say we followed the team talk fully!) but Roger looked after these kiwis by translating into English. Needless to say through our whole Korfball experience so far there have been many jokes about English, translations, meanings and pronunciations!
We knew we had a tough challenge in front of us today with the Dalto 4 team comprised mostly of former players from their first and second teams with vast Korfball experience and skill. Youth, speed, energy and accuracy were going to be key today for us to compete with our more experienced opponents. Coops was having her first start with Vera, Richard and Jordy in the attack vak (division) while I was starting in verdediging (defence) with Youri, Milanne and Jarolien.
Conditions were overcast and the drizzle was holding off, making for pleasant playing weather. The game started with both teams feeling each other out but after trading a goal each it became clear we were in for a tough day as Dalto started to assert their dominance with some very accurate distance shooting. While our defence was more solid than last week, making less mistakes, Dalto were still able to keep their side of the scoreboard turning over at regular intervals by playing simple but very accurate Korfball topped of with great shooting. Compared with our previous performance against Wageningen, we were able to create more scoring opportunities on attack but were not able to convert these chances frequently. Solid defence from Dalto also forced us into taking some longer shots and our first half was punctuated by a number of poor passes in attack. It was exciting to see Coops open her scoring account, threading through a nice 4m shot dropping off behind the korf. At half time Dalto led 7-16.
The second half started with myself scoring a running in shot, after some nice lead up work by the rest of the vak. However a similar pattern to the first half began to emerge, Dalto quickly adding to their tally with more accurate distance shooting. Our attack was certainly more accurate in the second half with improved passing, but the shots just not dropping with the regularity we needed. I managed to add one more goal, a short shot, to my tally before being subbed off after three quarters of the game. Coops continued to run strongly throughout the game, building on the experience from her time on court last week to finish out a full 70-minute game (in the outdoor competition we play 35 minutes halves). Dalto’s scoring slowed as the game wore on, eventually winning 16-26.
Today we were quite simply out shot by a more experienced and accurate team. I felt our performance was better than last week by creating more attacking opportunities and having a better mental performance throughout the game despite falling behind early. Personally I certainly felt more comfortable on the field today in understanding my role and how to best use my strengths. This will only improve with more training and matches, hopefully leading to a few more goals and better contribution to the teams performance. Coops said in the post-match interview “while the team has not seemed to gel completely and play to our full potential for our first two games of the season I think that it will only get better. We will improve overall once we get more of a feel for each other and how each other likes to play. I’m excited to see the improvements of the team throughout the competition”.
Lorenzo