Volleyball: Bitok says his team did not play well against Argentina

Kenya National women volleyball team coach Paul Bitok [Courtesy]

Malkia Strikers coach Paul Bitok rued the mistakes committed by his team against Argentina yesterday as the Kenyans once again lost in straight at the ongoing FIVB World Cup in Japan.

The African Games champions were a pale shadow of the team that pushed Brazil on Wednesday as they made many errors both in attack and ball reception as the Argentinians easily won 25-14, 25-19, 25-15.

Speaking after the match Bitok said: “Our team today didn’t play well. We wanted to play like yesterday (Wednesday) in our match against Brazil when we displayed a good game according to what we had planned. We wanted to change our system to try and play faster and we wanted the same today.

“It was unfortunate that we wanted to use the same system but we wanted to win. But we couldn’t contain the pressure from Argentina because they made few mistakes. But as I said yesterday, we will continue to think long term and try to use the same system. Maybe it will work for us, maybe it won’t work for us, but in the end I believe it will give us good results.

“From now, we are going to play against Asian countries – Korea, China and Japan – who play very fast. I hope that what we have learned from this site will help us to play better. We have started to play a fast game so we hope it will help us when we meet such teams. It is not going to be easy but we have to work on our weaknesses, especially reception, and that will help us because we are strong in attack.”

On her part Malkia Strikers captain Mercy Moim said: “I want to say congratulations to the Argentina team. I think today my team played badly throughout the game. When we play against big teams, we play better, but when we play with an average team we play badly. We have to correct this.

"I think we have to improve our reception and sometimes our blocks don’t work well. When the block isn’t working well in front, we have problems covering in the back court. I think we have to play like we practice."