legendary_totoro’s Haven
Tahitian Volleyball Championship

The Taste of a Repeated Story

...isn’t that good !

Tuesday 31 March 2009 by legendary_totoro

At the end of the regular season, my club (Pirae) emerged a favorite to take the title. The other clubs to defeat in order to be crowned were Venus (2nd), Tefana (3rd) and Mehiti (4th).

Play-offs, the Prelims

We were opposed to Venus, Tefana and Mehiti and I didn’t play versus Venus and Tefana. I don’t know why, I haven’t got much play time since the last encounter with Venus (where I did pretty well). Maybe this is some coaching strategy, I honestly don’t know...

Anyway, I got to play versus Mehiti after we beat both Venus & Tefana 3-0 and were already qualified for the finals. I grabbed this opportunity to try to show my best. The first set was very disputed as usual then came that little incident around the 2nd regular timeout. We were on the passing and it didn’t go too well, I had a hard time making a decent setting after I saved the ball from outside the court. The block countered our attack and we had the opportunity to retry. I managed to get in position to prepare for a setting but Rafio (wingman) thought I was overwhelmed by my last action and rushed towards the ball, hitting me hard on my left knee in the process...

I was stunned by the shock and couldn’t get up by myself. I got transported to the bench and applied ice on my knee. I was really worried because I couldn’t move my leg at all. My substitution was assured by JM but I had yet to assess the situation on my knee. After a few moments I regained mobility over my leg which was very reassuring. Had I broken anything, it would have swollen but nothing of the like appeared, and I barely sensed any pain. It appears I was just the aftershock of the trauma.

After I made sure I was about fine, the 1st set was over in our favor. The coach agreed to let me back in the field. I managed to get over the uneasiness coursing in my knee and started with kindled and high spirits. Mehiti probably wanted to seize the opportunity to crush us by letting their wingman attack while I was in front of him. I punished them with 3 tremendous blocks !

These blocks sent the message to everyone that I wasn’t showing any sign of weakness. Mehiti apparently received the message and started to give their other wingman the ball everytime I was in the front row... Talk about fear and intimidation...

Anyways, we quickly ended the match with a perfect 3-0 score and thus reaffirmed our leading position in this championship. We were already qualified before that match so my focus was on other concerns...

Fury of the Knee-agara (Niagara) Falls

As soon as I got home I put my knee under more ice and put on some pain killer cream and started massage it. Despite the usual adrenaline rush I quickly found sleep.

The next morning was an agonizing one. We had a one day break before the finals on Saturday night (fever) so I intended to get plenty of ice/pain killers combo during the day. Hopefully I only had to go to school in the morning. These 4 hours of work however were atrocious. I could barely walk and of course, curiosity made a lot of people ask about my "déhanché" :P

Pain wasn’t exactly my primary center of concern. Even when I started the day, there wasn’t much pain to kill. Just that I was still stunned in a way and that my moves were somewhat limited to the minimum. I could still use some flexibility but somehow, walking was horrible.

I spent the afternoon under the ice and creams, hoping for my knee to "unlock" the rest of my leg. Kinda hard to describe it.

Anyways, by the end of the day, my walking procedure looked a bit more natural but I still had a long way to go in order to play on Saturday night.

I spent the next day (Saturday) under the same regime as Friday and found myself in quite a suitable shape to play. Of course, in the meantime I had my knee examined by a certified doctor who said I should be fine.

I was about as confident as one could be prior to the match since I demonstrated enough spirits during the last match versus Mehiti. There was also the possibility that I was put in as a starter in order to let the regulars rest to be in their best shape but I had no clue as to if I would play at all...

April 12th 2009 : Recent events that occured during our trip to Brisbane (Queensland - Australia) have given me matter to think about my newly retirement. I might just make a come back. The decision hasn’t been taken yet so don’t freak out too early... I’ll keep you posted on that anyway.

Home page | Contact | Site Map | Private area | Statistics | visits: 37968

Follow-up of the site's activity en  Follow-up of the site's activity Volleyball   ?

Site created with SPIP 1.9.2c + ALTERNATIVES

Creative Commons License