Olympics: GB volleyball team feel strain at Pleasance as final cut looms

Edinburgh University’s Pleasance Sports Complex has been dressed up to the nines to welcome Great Britain’s men’s Olympic volleyball squad this week but the only number that concerns the players is making the final 12.

The GB team lost to Belgium for the second time in three days yesterday – this time 18-25, 20-25, 29-27, 15-25 – which meant that the Belgians cannot now be overhauled in the three-match series ahead of tomorrow’s final match.

But the sub-plot is all the more intriguing. Harry Brokking, GB’s Dutch head coach, has to cut his squad from 14 players to 12 for the Games after tomorrow’s match and there is evidence the players, including Scots Mark McGivern and Chris Lamont, are feeling the strain. Even Ben Pipes, the captain who always plays with passion but keeps his composure, had some brief angry words with libero Matt Howe in the fourth set after he had misjudged a service and let it fall in court to give Belgium a 17-12 lead. Brokking called a time-out to defuse the situation.

Pipes, the most-capped player in the team, admits the players are on edge at such a critical stage in the programme, having grown together in recent years.

“Of course, there is tension. I don’t want to presume that’s what you see on court but it’s natural,” he said. “Everybody steps on court thinking that this might be their last time.

“Two players have to be cut after these games and it will be their last games in a GB shirt this summer. That’s at the back of everyone’s mind but I think we’ve generated a culture that it’s not really brought onto the court but sometimes it might filter through and it’s something you have to learn to deal with.

“Our greatest gift to the coach is to give him a hell of a decision to make for London. At the start of the programme, you could only have just picked 12 players but I think now there are between 19-22 athletes who you could put in different permutations and on court at the Olympics. It’s definitely not going to be easy for him.”

Brokking took the chance to look at his back up players in the second match and left Lamont and the explosive Dami Bakare on the sidelines.

He started with back-up setter Kieran O’Malley in place of Pipes and, perhaps understandably, Brokking’s side struggled to find their rhythm. Great Britain saved three match points in the third set to win it in thrilling fashion 29-27 in front of a sell-out 600 crowd but Belgium kept the heat on in the final set to see out the match.

“It is difficult when we started with a completely new team after Tuesday and, from the beginning, we were struggling to find our rhythm with all the substitutions,” admitted Brokking.

“But we had a good look at the players before we make our decisions.

“Unfortunately, we have to cut two players and I have to do it quicker than any other coach in the world, which makes it even more difficult. You can see there is a kind of tension on the court because of the cut in the squad and the players are feeling the pressure and it makes it more difficult for them than normal.”