As most of our host families were starting their working week, we were returning to De Eendracht for Monday morning training. This session was taken by guest coach Jans Dingsté, who is another of the many highly qualified DOS ’46 coaches willing to help us, and whose coaching career includes serving as assistant coach to the club’s senior team that became national champion in 2007.
Jans took the players through some shooting drills and helped to refine some of our attacking strategies, giving us the benefit of his knowledge and experience in a relaxed and easy to understand manner, which we really appreciated.
At the end of the session, coach Mark named Alice, Boris and James as the squad’s leadership group, meaning they will share responsibility as the team’s captain in our games at the tournament, and will lead whichever ‘vak,’ or division, they are in on court. Koru was also awarded again with Jakob giving Alice the privilege of helping Koru once again experience Dutch life.
Again the weather put paid to our afternoon plans. We had intended to ride our bikes to Meppel, about five kilometres away from Nijeveen. However, due to the strong, cold wind, we decided ‘free time’ for the afternoon was a better option to chill out and conserve our strength for the evening’s practice game. Darts and table tennis at the Buiten family is quickly becoming a favoured recreational activity for all of the boys.
In the evening our host families took us by car from Nijeveen to Meppel to a local high school’s large new sports hall where our DOS ’46 coaches had organised a game for us against the Oranje Zwart (‘Orange and Black’) under 19 team. With the work we have done in training, particularly over the past two days, we made a positive step forward from the previous evening’s practice game and put on a strong performance against a team of players around the same age as us, though with greater korfball experience. Coach Mark was particularly pleased with the way we put our defensive strategies into place, and our host families gave us excellent support from the viewing gallery. Although everyone played with intensity and contributed to a tremendous team effort, Jared, Chelsea and Sam, in particular, each scored freely and made some excellent goals. The final score was 16-9 to kiwis but it was the quality of the performance and wiliness to challenge themselves that was the greatest success for the players.
Tomorrow is a big day with a training session in the morning from former Dutch national team coach Jan Soujke van den Bos, some sightseeing in the afternoon, and a trip to Assen for another practice game in the evening against AVO.
Tot morgen,
Rob and Bevan
Jans took the players through some shooting drills and helped to refine some of our attacking strategies, giving us the benefit of his knowledge and experience in a relaxed and easy to understand manner, which we really appreciated.
At the end of the session, coach Mark named Alice, Boris and James as the squad’s leadership group, meaning they will share responsibility as the team’s captain in our games at the tournament, and will lead whichever ‘vak,’ or division, they are in on court. Koru was also awarded again with Jakob giving Alice the privilege of helping Koru once again experience Dutch life.
Again the weather put paid to our afternoon plans. We had intended to ride our bikes to Meppel, about five kilometres away from Nijeveen. However, due to the strong, cold wind, we decided ‘free time’ for the afternoon was a better option to chill out and conserve our strength for the evening’s practice game. Darts and table tennis at the Buiten family is quickly becoming a favoured recreational activity for all of the boys.
In the evening our host families took us by car from Nijeveen to Meppel to a local high school’s large new sports hall where our DOS ’46 coaches had organised a game for us against the Oranje Zwart (‘Orange and Black’) under 19 team. With the work we have done in training, particularly over the past two days, we made a positive step forward from the previous evening’s practice game and put on a strong performance against a team of players around the same age as us, though with greater korfball experience. Coach Mark was particularly pleased with the way we put our defensive strategies into place, and our host families gave us excellent support from the viewing gallery. Although everyone played with intensity and contributed to a tremendous team effort, Jared, Chelsea and Sam, in particular, each scored freely and made some excellent goals. The final score was 16-9 to kiwis but it was the quality of the performance and wiliness to challenge themselves that was the greatest success for the players.
Tomorrow is a big day with a training session in the morning from former Dutch national team coach Jan Soujke van den Bos, some sightseeing in the afternoon, and a trip to Assen for another practice game in the evening against AVO.
Tot morgen,
Rob and Bevan