JAVA TO ASSESS QUALIFICATION FAILURE

By Andre´ Lowe, Observer staff reporter lowea@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Jamaica Volleyball Association (JAVA) will commence an assessment of their ill-fated FIVB World Championship qualification campaign, which ended with a heart-breaking spike inside the National Indoor Sports Centre at the end of Jamaica's 1-3 loss to The Bahamas in Saturday's semi-finals.
Meanwhile, Jamaica's head coach David Jack has laid the blame on poor execution from his players and mental weakness after watching the 'Riddim Boys' surrender three consecutive sets (18-25, 22-25, 22-25) after earlier claiming the first, 25-19.
Said Jack: "I really don't know what went wrong, it's rough and we played hard. I think we were plagued by some poor passing and until we can move away from that we won't be able to win these. We have some very talented players on our squad, but for some reason when it comes to the big games we are not able to get over the hurdles.
"It (mental block) is something that has plagued us, but we just have to continue working on it. It's not easy, but we cannot give up." he continued.
JAVA boss Wayne Robertson was obviously disappointed with the outcome, but maintained that the national programme was still in a good position despite the setback.
"We now have to assess what went wrong, we cannot get discouraged because the programme is a long-term one. Though we are disappointed we have to look at everything and when that assessment is completed we make the necessary implementations.
I'm sure we will be able to see the growth."
Robertson opined that he believes the Jamaicans lost as a result of underestimating their opponents who they have beaten comfortably several times last year.
He added: "I can't over-emphasise the importance of not losing momentum because we won the first set and I think we then started to take it easy.I think we underestimated them as they are a team that we have defeated consistently, but that is now behind us and we must now move forward."
Jack agreed and added that it is important that the team plays more games together to continue the development of the team and the sport in Jamaica.
"We have to keep building, we are on our way, we just need to keep playing the game and keep fighting. If we give up then volleyball dies, so we have to keep playing, coaching and getting players who can get us through the next level,"
Jack said.
JAVA will now turn their attention to the female qualifiers in Florida, which is set for July 6-8 at the University of Central Florida Arena.
The Jamaicans defeated Haiti 3-1 for third place last night, while The Bahamas faced Mexico in the championship game with the last two already qualified to the next stage of qualification for the World Championships.