So having made the late decision to enter a men's team into the East Midlands League, we pulled a brave new team together for our first game of the season... Fortunately we had played together for a whopping whole practice session!

We all made it to the venue, which was a good start, we won the toss: excellent, and traded points in the first set, but were never able to pull away.  At about 11 all, a good tactical time out by Vipers allowed them to re-focus and they pulled a 3 point cushion (taking 5 on the trot)... which meant they held onto to win the first set (25-19)... damn. 

... But we were a new group of players and looked pretty good, only let down by our own unforced errors... Onto set 2.

So having had a rude awakening... we took a good attitude into set 2... and played well again, this time moving to 9-6 up.  But then seemed to loose some concentration and ended up 18-13 down... again unforced errors were the order of the day.  Then, despite some excellent individual pick-ups, Vipers closed out 25-17... :-(

So we were now looking a little worried... losing was no quite what we were prepared for!

Set 3... Well what can we say... We simplified the tactics, tried hard, made it to 7-7 then decided to implode a little!  Running out 25-13 losers...

So all in all... A very rude awakening against a team we didn't expect much from... But Vipers have got a lot better, their hall is rubbish (we lost at least 5 points per set cause of the low roof!), and we were a new bunch of players!

While there weren't many positives to point to - we can hold onto the fact that we made most of the mistakes - and thus - we can get a lot better by getting to training and learning our system.

Well done... Was a tough lesson to take... But its now onward and upwards!