TN junior volleyball team packs a punch

The boys’ team’s chief coach MP Murali was a pleased man with the pluck shown by his team which was stretched to playing gruelling five-setters in five of the eight matches it played. “It’s never easy to play so many five-set matches. But that is precisely what my team succeeded in doing as we had to play three back-to-back five-setters from the quarter-final stage onwards and all those three were against top-notch opponents such as Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab ,” said Murali.

The draw, too, was not kind for the TN team as it was pooled in a tough group that included Punjab, SAI, Bihar, West Bengal and Telangana. The coach said beating a strong SAI team, that featured the best players from all the states, in straight sets gave the team confidence that it could go all the way. 

“I would say that the win against SAI in a such a convincing fashion was the turning point. And later, we followed it up with another outstanding performance against Punjab beating it in the final league match. That did wonders to our morale and helped us enormously when we faced the same opponent in the final,” reflected Murali.

The final, as mentioned earlier, went to the wire before Tamil Nadu held its nerve to win 23-25, 25-23, 25-23, 23-25, 15-9. As the scoreline indicates, there was very little to separate the two teams barring a few points and the coach emphasised that his team fought bravely and played tactfully during the crunch moments. 

“Two of our main attackers, S Nandagopal and Vinayakamurthy rose to the occasion commendably by their timely contributions and they received good support from libero Srikanth. All these three put in consistent displays to bail the team out of trouble,” added Murali.

According to the chief coach, what made the triumph all the more fulfilling was that it was the first time in four years TN returned home with the trophy. “I’m happy to see how the boys reacted to tough situations. Not even once did they lose hope. And to have beaten quality teams shows that we are heading in the right direction and we can expect more in the future,” concluded Murali.