I hope noone died of suspense waiting for this post, but it’s very easy to keep busy when on tour, it’s a Woodford of volleyball!

First the games: we played the qualifier on Tuesday and drew Sweden (the team in the photo) in the first round. We were both seeded very low and the game certainly involved shaking out a few cobwebs, but after losing the first set we managed to pull things together to win in three (14-21, 21-15, 15-8).

In that first game we certainly didn’t give much away to the second seeded Austrians Gosch and Horst, who we played next. They were a quite strong team, and despite a good fight we lost in two sets 21-17, 21-18. Gosch and Horst lost their next game in the qualification round to veteran Hoidalen and Goranson from Norway. Full results for the qualifier are at the FIVB.

Duck and I thought that we had a reasonable game, and the mutual feeling is that we are actually quite close to qualifying. When we put service pressure on the Austrians we won quite a few points, and we felt that it was only a couple of lapses on our part that separated the teams. Certainly we learnt a lot and have a couple of things to work on before the next tournament, but the mood is quite positive.