We woke up on Monday the 19^th to an 8:30 breakfast and a roll out after.

It was at breakfast when our liaison Tracey came up to ask “do her a favour” (and we couldn’t say no) to do a VTV exclusive over the road at what we can only assume used to a hotel pool, nek minute green pond with accompanying gondola ride.

On arrival we were forcefully instructed by Tracey to have fun and smile and say “everything is nice” and that we all “love the serenading Vietnamese music”.

After ten minutes of said music Tracey asked for someone to “volunteer” to try and sing a “line” of the music.

So in true dictator fashion we made the youngin’s rock off to determine the lucky girl. Luck was on Karley’s side and she started to sweat bullets. So up she went to take her place front and centre. Tracey then wanted some backup dancers so the other 2 were forced to participate alongside. Nikki willingly took her place whereas Bec Reeve was somewhat reluctant.

Once in place the Vietnamese lady came over to teach the “line” nek minute paragraph to Karley. Safe to say more bullets were sweat and tears were shed in laughter (especially from Loz and Walter). Karley being incapacitated from this, Nikki Stepped up to the plate and took one for the team by doing a lovely rendition.

Volleyroos women perform traditional Vietnamese music.

Chau called Tracey to see what was taking so long as our training was due to start 15minutes earlier and she instructed us to run back or she’d be in trouble!  We were still all in stitches on returning and luckily have footage of the whole event.

After training we had lunch then scouting video of Vietnam for the game later that day. A little downtime in the arvo then it was game time.

Let’s just say it wasn’t our best performance, going down in 3, but we hope to rectify that against the Kazi’s today.

Xoxo Soph and Tash #407

First few days

Well here we are again in Vietnam for another instalment of the VTV Cup.

We arrived late on Thursday night and had a decent sleep before training on Friday morning in very very sweaty conditions. The humidity is stifling here.

We had a good hit out on Friday and then another on Saturday before our first match Saturday night.

We were treated to a welcoming dinner on Friday night, and asked to provide some entertainment, which with the help of Satasha’s choreography and dance skills, Karley’s backwards worm, and Luka’s break dance move (yes, just one), turned out to be more successful than some of our previous performances.

We’ve welcomed a few new faces to the VTAW fold, with a new coach and assistant this tour – welcome back to Mark Barnard and Sue Jenkins, plus Henry Tram is helping us keep injury free to stay on the court as our physio.

We also have one ‘rookie’ in the team – welcome to Luka, our Belgian who’s recently become an Aussie.

We’ve been working hard on some new offensive and defensive systems, which has been challenging given such a short preparation phase together, but exciting to look forward to how this will help us grow our game in the future as we get some more time together and continue to work on them.

We’ve had 2 matches so far, the first was against the national team from DPK Korea (North Korea) and the second against Thailand B. Both were unfortunately 3 set losses, and it’s taking us some time to settle and find some rhythm with this fairly new group of players together. We will be continuing to work on improving and are excited to get on court again tonight against Vietnam, which will likely be a match in front of a screaming and patriotic crowd. We are confident we can the results around as the week progresses.

Tournament Schedule

17/05/2014 20.00 vs North Korea

18/05/2014 14.30 vs Thailand

19/05/2014 19.00 vs Vietnam

20/05/2014 14.30 vs Kazakhstan

21/05/2014 17.00 vs China

22/05/2014 20.00 Rest day

23/05/2014 Semi Finals and 5-6 playoff

24/05/2014 Gold/Bronze matches

All times are Vietnam time, three hours behind AEST

All matches are streamed live on VTV6 except for the gold medal game

which will be on VTV3

http://vtv.vn/Modules/Media/Streaming.aspx?channel=vtv6

VTV Cup 2014

As part of our preparation for the World Grand Prix later in the year, Volleyroo Womens team is embarking on a trip to Vietnam to compete at the VTV Cup.

This year VTV Cup is held in Bac Ninh city, just north of Hanoi.

The team:

Olivia Orchard (SA)

Beth Carey (SA)

Rebecca Reeve (SA)

Goedele (Luka) Van Cauteren (SA)

Sophie Godfrey (WA)

Nikala Cunningham (QLD)

Katarina Osadchuk (QLD)

Satasha Savea (NSW)

Lauren Bertolacci (VIC)

Rebecca Walter (VIC)

Kat Chen (VIC)

Karley Hynes (VIC)

Head coach: Mark Barnard

Assitant coaches: Sue Jenkins (ACT) and Chau Le (VIC)

Physiotherapist: Henry Tram (VIC)

Please check back here for our schedule, match reports and other updates from the team.