My IRB Experience 2023 – Harry Brett
Each year we ask a number of our young athletes to report back on their experience, today we focus on Harry Brett, who was selected to represent the SW at this summer’s U18 International Beach Championships.
On the 8th and 9th of July 2023 I was selected to Represent my region Southwest at the U18 Inter Regional Beach championships. Last year I also competed in this event however, this time I was pair one which showed my improvement from the previous year.
We travelled up to Cardiff the day before to ensure that we all had a good night’s sleep before the long day of playing on the next day. We also used this time to go through the teams that we’d be playing and what strategies to use against them.
An early rise the next morning would prepare us for games starting at 9am so we were wide awake and sharp to give our best performance. We would need this as we were matched up against the South East region who looked like the team that would cause us the most problems all weekend.
The beginning of the match was tight, points were 1 at a time and the score was even for most of the first set. However, as the end of the set approached the opposition stepped up a gear pulling our advanced b1’s which is a quick set to the pin which both defenders and blockers struggle to counter. This gave them the push they needed to take the first set and this caused our heads to drop slightly. The second set started badly going 7-2 down within a short space of time and this led to us calling a timeout. This ended up being a smart move as we stepped up now and brought the score to 10-11 and a side change moving us to the better side. The rest of the set reflected that of the first with back and forth but a slight drop from us with a close finish of 19-21 to South East. Losing 2-0 wasn’t ideal but we knew the game was much closer than the scores said, and we made sure to keep our heads high going into the second pool match.
Now because we had lost our first match it was very important that we went into the second game with a win at all costs mentality. It was against London’s second team which was still strong saying it was the second pair. Further more the conditions had worsened so we would have to play in the wet and windy. The start of the game was excellent going up 14-10 early on before the other team calling a timeout. This further propelled us into taking the first set 21-15 a comfortable take. Going into the second our game became much sloppier as we were giving them easy points which made this set much closer as we came close to 21. But in the end, we lost the second set in a closely fought 23-21. We took the break between sets to reset and get ready for the final set. Coming out strong we presented a lead as the score was 7-4. We made sure to put our all into this and through this determination we won the game in a 15-11 final set.
The penultimate game of day 1 was against a tough opponent, Yorkshire. We came into this one needing to win if we wanted an easier route out of the pool stages. Knowing this we put all our effort coming out of the start being close having the scores be 17-17 our opponents were tough being well practised and precise with their shots which meant we were becoming really tired really quickly. Our fatigue got to us in the end of this set leading to them taking it 21-18 which was unfortunate saying our strong start. Going into the second we dropped our heads because of the unlucky loss and this caused us to become sloppy and the opponent ran away quickly.
This meant that we now had our crossover game to end the day, this was against South Wales. This game was tight and after an unfortunate 23-21 first set we lost our momentum and unfortunately ended the second set 21-19 which was an unlucky result. However, due to our second pair winning we got into a golden set which was one short set to 15 points, and this was for the match. Unfortunately, yet again we lost but this time it was only 15-10, and that was it for day one.
The next morning began with an opener against the East of England. We went into this game confident from the underwhelming performance of the previous day and started off with a bang, taking the first set 21-12. As a result, the opponent stepped up their game and took the second set 21-16 which lead to a final set. We took this with confidence and a 15-12 score line.
Because of our loss in the crossover, we had matched up against London A, the winners of the other pool, knowing that we had to play our best to have a shot at winning. The first set began with some big blocks from my teammate and the scores were tight until around 12-12, where they made a few less errors and went off where we eventually ended at 21-17. Using this momentum, they made an early push to 19-11 however we made a comeback to 19-18 but a timeout from them disrupted our momentum and they took the set.
From this we were into our final game, the 5-6 playoff which was against London B. Between out last game and now, a huge storm had come over and it was now torrential rain which means the balls were heavy and slippery which lead to sloppy gameplay, we won the first and last set against London as we anxiously watched our second pair lose in a tight battle, however they unfortunately lost a close one which meant it was a golden set. It was the end of a long weekend, and both teams were tired which lead to long winded points and the golden set was 11-11, and in a close fight they took a short lead and took the game for 5th place.
This Tournament was my last opportunity to play in IRB and it was a memorable one with some wild weather and amazing volleyball even though it wasn’t the result I wanted. It was a great experience that I’ll for sure remember!
Harry Brett
