BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC:
A BREAKDOWN in team spirit resulted in Jamaica's straight sets loss to Barbados on Saturday night and probably cost them a spot in the second round of the 2006 Men's World Volleyball Championship qualifiers.
Lacking the confidence and aggression that characterised their game in the tournament, Jamaica were humbled 25-17, 25-19, 28-26 and Philip Greenland, the team's head coach and technical director, said the team had cracked emotionally on court.
"There was an emotional gap in the team. We were being beaten and we were confused, we were starting to argue with each other on the court and I thought (it) best to get them fired up, get them emotionally charged and then try to get them to focus that emotional energy into the game against Barbados rather than themselves," Greenland revealed.
"We started out with that focus but the experience of the Bajan team just came through in the end."
He added: "We made a lot of errors because of agitation. We wanted to do well obviously but we weren't in control of our emotions, we weren't in control of our mental state and we made a lot of unforced errors, which allowed Barbados the comfort of executing their game to their strategy."
In a match hyped as the tournament's feature, Barbados ensured that it never lived up to the tense "could go either way" billing.
They combined an air-tight defence with an aggressive display of power hitting and the approach seemed to have caught Jamaica napping.
The perennial Caribbean champions captured the first set easily after establishing 11-4 and 19-12 advantages and in the second set, applied even more pressure to romp to 10-6 and 16-10 leads before going 2-0 up in sets.
A dejected Jamaica captain, Ricardo Chung also pointed to lack of team unity as the reason for the heavy defeat.
"The players that everybody looked up to didn't bring their game today," Chung admitted.
COHESIVENESS
"We weren't playing with the cohesiveness that we had in the earlier matches. Having a team that is at home having support of their whole country against you, little things will break down in the team and that's what happened."
He added: "I don't think it (team spirit) broke down in a day, it's just that we had comfort in the other matches but this match was the match to be here for and we just weren't here."
Greenland, who has now presided over several defeats to arch-rivals Barbados in recent years, said that Barbados had clearly demonstrated their vast experience over the Jamaica team.
"With the experience of the Bajan team, they have learnt to play under pressure. They have learnt to play with calm nerves, they have learnt to remain collected under pressure and we obviously haven't," he lamented.
"When you play against weaker teams, you can never know how strong you are. We saw Barbados against the same teams we were beating and Barbados were struggling against them."
He added: "But there is this gap that experience alone brings. The gap is this control under pressure. While they (Barbados) were able to maintain their composure, we weren't and it is just a function of exposure and personal maturity."
The defeat was Jamaica's second to Barbados in the space of 11 months after they lost the final of the Caribbean Volleyball Championships in four sets last summer.
But while noting Jamaica's mistakes, Greenland said Barbados had to be credited for their performance as they played superb volleyball and had not repeated the mistakes they made in last year's encounter.
"... Barbados brought a tough game. Tougher than we expected, tougher than they had played, tougher than we had experienced during the course of the tournament," Greenland stressed.
"They made less errors (than in last year's match). We got a set last year (and) we got three nil this year. They, in spite of what they were showing before, really lifted their game and we just weren't prepared for it."
