My IRC Experience 2022 – Jarryd Mossman

Each year we ask a number of our youngsters to report back on their SW IRC experience, today we focus on Jarryd Mossman (SW Number 3) from our U15 Boys Squad.

I was very fortunate to have been selected to represent the South West playing in the U15 Boys Team at the Inter-Regional Competitions in May 2022. We were picked up on the Saturday by the minibus which had a group of U17 Boys onboard as well, who were really enthusiastic and helped us to get hyped up. We swapped buses and that’s when we had the full U15 squad on one bus. We sang lots of songs on drive up to Leicester.

We got to the hotel and once we were settled in, we went and had dinner. After dinner we were given our South West team kit. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in our rooms and preparing for the next day.

It was an early start the next day, Sunday. We had breakfast and made the journey down to the venue. Arriving at the venue we watched some of the U15s girls matches before getting on court to warm up and prepare for our matches. The first match was close with us just losing by a small margin due to player errors. Our second match was against East. We lost, though none of our team seemed disheartened. We were all just grateful to be there and taking part. And we had more matches to look forward to the next day.

We had another early start on Monday morning. We had breakfast and set off again to the venue. Our first match was East Midlands. They were a fierce opponent. Although we won the first set, East Mids eventually got the better of us. Then it was the knockout stages next. Despite being in the knockouts, it felt like the team was relieved of pressure and the play flowed much better against London. We might have lost the majority of our games that day but there wasn’t a moment when I can say that any of my teammates had lost faith in ourselves. I like to attribute our unwavering positivity in the face of these losses to the amazing time we spent bonding in time beforehand.

We finished the day with a speech from our head coach. We took team photos and headed home in the minibus. On the journey home, one by one said goodbye to each other. I’m thankful for the time I got to spend, not only playing volleyball, but meeting amazing people like me who love volleyball.

Jarryd Mossman