Reigning two-time world champions Poland crushed Australia in comfortable straight sets with some huge blocking and serving for their third win at the 2021 FIVB Men’s Volleyball Nations League in Rimini, Italy on Thursday.
Poland, which beat Italy and Serbia, but went down to Slovenia, saw off Australia, the team on the bottom of the 16-team standings, 25-16, 25-10, 25-12. It was the Volleyroos’ fourth loss in the top-flight competition. They first succumbed to the straight-set loss to Germany before going down in close straight sets to Bulgaria. Australia suffered their third loss in dramatic four sets at the hands of France.
Lukasz Kaczmarek chipped in with 17 points for Poland, while Kamil Semeniuk and Tomasz Fornal added 12 and 10 points respectively. Captain Nehemiah Mote and Luke Smith scored 5 points apiece on Australia’s losing efforts.
Arshdeep Dosanjh of Australia said at the virtual mixed zone: “I think it was a very difficult game. The positive thing that we can take out of this – it shows us where we need to be and how hard we have to work to be like one of the best teams in the world. So there are a lot of things to improve on. We were not aggressive enough, playing against teams like Poland you have to take chances, because if you give away easy chances, they will give it back ten times harder.”
Poland’s Lukasz Kaczmarek said: “We cannot say that it was an easy win, because in the third set we didn’t start well, but in general we played a good game – we started well, our block and defence were very good, we played amazing in block, but especially our service was key. We were pushing them with the service and then it as easy to play.
“We know that it was theoretically easier to play against Australia, than against our next opponents – USA and Russia. We have a heavy week and very strong opponents, so we are happy that we won easily with Australia and now we can prepare for the next matches,” he added.
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