The Sunday Mail
Veronica Gwaze
DESPITE an impressive outing in which University of Zimbabwe Wolves Women finished the Zimbabwe Volleyball Association League as champions, head coach Jonathan Gava feels the team did not play to his expectations.
The university side, who approached the tournament as favourites, thwarted Support Unit Women, in a 3-1 thriller in the finals in Victoria Falls.
The team went on to grab four individual accolades, with Helga Chingwere emerging as best server, Charity Madhlangobe bagging the most valuable player (MVP), while Lisa Madombwe and Nono Manhai took best attacker and blocker, respectively.
Gava was not be charmed by the result.
“The result was partly what I expected, and we are proud but in terms of the play, they were not at their best,” he said.
In the ZVA league that was played in a tournament format, UZ emerged top in pool A, before taking on Harare City in a cross-pool clash, which the university side won 3-1.
Maintaining their dominance, the Gava-led side then took on Manyame Falcons in the semi-finals contest, comfortably winning 3-0.
However, the gaffer said despite a 3-1 victory against the powerful Support Unit in the finals, the police side gave them a good run for their money.
“Support Unit are a big team and Zimbabwe Open Tournament favourites so taking them on was obviously tough, but we had rested enough and were prepared,” he said.
“We had to be more tactical and scientific; it was basically about watching them play especially when they played Harare City in their last game, so this is where we picked our lessons from.”
Gava said his charges had to put in extra hours to ensure they bounce back to winning ways after finishing off the Harare Volleyball Premier League on position three behind Harare City and Support Unit recently.
He reckons his charges we lagging behind in training.
“They needed to be reminded that we have a name and reputation to redeem, we had to rise,” said the coach.
“The HVA defeat was actually a blessing in a way for them, they realised that they needed to train hard and that they are not invincible.
“We may have won some of the games, but we never gave much attention to how we train so this was a turning point for us and retaining our title means the strategy is paying off.”
