MVL WD1 home match vs Everton Rhinos

Venue: Woodchurch Time: 11:00am

Team: Nina Hofmann (captain), Gina Nuttall, Lily Hogan, Beth Connor, Emma Parr, Issy Parr, Eloise Duncalf, Kate Thomas

Result: Lost 1-3, 25-21, 22-25, 11-25, 21-25

We started half an hour late after problems repairing the net and a had to rejig the team due to a shortage of middle players, playing Gina in the middle instead of setting. However the team seemed to shrug off these problems and began the match well, exposing Everton’s weaknesses, serving strongly and pulling out into a big lead. Everton fought back towards the end of the set but our girls closed it out for a relatively comfortable 25-21 win. So far, so good, but then we collectively forgot how to serve. The first three attempts in set 2 were service faults and suddenly we were 8-3 down and, despite a late recovery there was no way back. The third set was even worse as our girls forgot how to receive as well as how to serve and Everton began to find some strong attack. We went down 11-25 . The 4th set was better and although we were 23-16 down a strong fightback brough us back to 20-23. Good work on the net from Gina won the ball back at 21-24 - our serve - and of course we lost the match with another service error.

Rhinos are one of the strongest teams in the league so losing to them was no disgrace, beating them would have put us in contention to win division 1, but we couldn’t find the fight and consistency the team showed in midweek against LJMU and went down pretty tamely, missing Lois (who had to cry off on Saturday evening) badly.