World Games 2009, 1st day

17 July
The program started with the match Czech Republic - Australia.
This match was played very enthusiastic, with a lot of energy (Brad Marks was an example in that aspect). This was also the reason why the match was sometimes a bit rough.

Both teams had 1 (Dennis Gilles) or 2 players (Roman Veznik and Martina Bouman) who have some experience in the Dutch competition. For me it was not surprising that The Czech team played better korfball than the Aussies. Every time you see in international tournaments that Australia has insufficient knowledge and experience of modern korfball.
The main problem of the Australian team is tactics. They seem to have no idea that tempo and timing of passing are very important in the cooperation to a goal. Very often they pass the ball too fast. They don't use the passing as a mean for communication. The ball is just going from spot to spot instead from position to position: The timing of a pass has to do with an objective: the player who gets the ball should be free and should go for a final action like a shot.
The balance in the line up of Australia was no good. Dennis Gilles (Bear, 3/10) and Megan O'keefe (Panther 3/14) played their roles in the first attack fairly good. The second attack operated badly. Many passes went wrong. So did the building up and the duels. Luke Rosie as a Tiger, (0/7) and Lia Matthews (0/10) showed that they are not good enough for the international level. Australia needs more international competition. If they continue in this way they play korfball good enough for fun but not for international top level. They need young athletes.
Another problem with the Australian team is that I cannot discover real fresh athletes in their team. We all know that other (team)sports in Australia are very strong. Maybe Australian korfball has stopped developing? Whatever?The reality is that Australia has lost the connection to the European countries. This is very disappointing!

The Czech team had a better balance in the line up. Both sections of the Czech could score.
Jacob Blaha was in the first attack the Tiger (4 goals out of 22 attempts). He was very solidly supported by Roman Veznik, who played around the post as Bear.
In the second attack it was Jiri Jezek (in the Bear position) who was very important. In the beginning of the match he tried to win the duels against Dennis Gilles in the center role. Later he discovered that it was more smart to play as a tiger against Dennis. Dennis is a good center defender around the post but when he plays as guard he cannot find the balance between risk and control. He is much to focused on interception. Jiri Jezek killed him easily from half distance and took care of 7 goals. (7/27)
A few years ago the Czech were very promising. But I didn't see any developments to a higher level either.

In both teams the male players were dominant. It should be a challenge for the female players of these countries (may be in all the korfball countries) to show more ambitions in developing their korfball skills. Most of the female players play like old fashioned house mothers. Korfball is basically a mixed sport in which the roles can be divided equally. It is time that the roles of the female players become decisive for the result of korfball matches.