Chinese High School Team Visit to Melbourne

By Michael Dolan.

St Bernards, the secondary school for boys where I teach and coach volleyball, recently played a match against a Chinese High School volleyball team. Our opponents were the number one Middle School of Shiajiazhuang from the Chinese province of He Bei.

Four sets were played and unfortunately for Shiajiazhuang, we could not give them a very close match. We knew berforehand that they would be a very good team as their national ranking of sixth indicated, and from our previous experience against a Chinese team.

The Chinese students, who were aged mainly between seventeen and nineteen years, presented a very polished display. Their basic skills were fluently performed and appeared effortless. On many occasions they were able to set up many quick attacking combinations.

The final score of 15:1, 15:7, 15:7 and 15:9 showing that my team improved with each set. It was clearly visable that my team of relative newcomers to volleyball were overawed by the challenge of playing the Chinese at their national sport. Also, I suspect the Chinese coach, Mr Wenzhong, of perhaps being diplomatic by altering the line-up after the first set.

A former professional Chinese player, Mr Guo Qi Lin, was responsible for this international high school volleyball match. While living in Australia, Qi Lin (pronounced 'Chee Lin') coached the Footscray Renegades for several years.

The Footscray Renegades are the parent club for the St Bernards team, and it is because of this association that the Renegades men's teams were also asked to play a series of round robin games against the visiting Chinese team. The Renegades did marginally better, with the Honours team managing to take only one set off the visitors under extremely hot, humid conditions.

The Victorian U19 squad also played a match against the visitors later in the week, and although they put up a good fight, they too were defeated.

It is considered a great honour to be in the Provincial team (the best players from al the schools in a province in China are selected to join the Provincial representative team). They are considered professionals and train eight hours a day, six days per week. The Province provided these athletes with accomodation, education and basic living expenses.

Qi Lin says that he knows little of the current Australian volleyball scene, but from what he has seen, the standard of school volleyball has improved. He believes that Australian students have better physical conditioning than the Chinese. The area in which we need to pay the most attention is refining the technique in the basic skills.

Through our involvement with the Chinese, a greater understanding of their approach to volleyball has resulted. I look forward to future encounters and hope my team can improve on this latest result. Praise from the Chinese would be high praise indeed.