Indonesia has modest goal at junior volley meet

Musthofid The Jakarta Post Jakarta

With Thailand expected to remain top dog, Indonesia will be looking for a modest goal when it hosts the upcoming Southeast Asian (SEA) Junior Men's Volleyball Championship in Jakarta next month.

The biennial volleyball event will run from June 16 to 20 and features teams from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The teams will play a round-robin competition. The pairings show that Indonesia will begin against Singapore, while Thailand is its final opponent.

"We are determined to beat the other three opponents before taking on Thailand in the final match on the closing day," Indonesian team's coach Syamsul Jais told a press conference here on Tuesday.

"Against Thailand, we will be trying to match them. But, it does not mean the odds are staked completely against us. We do have a chance to beat them and what we'll do is try to exploit even a slim advantage to our favor," he said.

Thailand has dominated the tournament. Last time round, Indonesia had to be content with fourth place.

Indonesia is currently grooming 18 junior players, whose average age is 18 years old, at the Sentul Volleyball Training Center in Bogor, West Java.

The team, under the coaching duo of Syamsul and Australian Andrew Strugnell, was fielded in the recent Proliga professional volleyball league, in which it was pitted against its seniors.

Syamsul, who is a former national star, said that after having been trained by Strugnell, whose training method was aimed at rebuilding solid teamwork, the team looked more confident.

Syamsul, whose last appearance as a player was at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, also hinted at a change of play by his squad, saying the team would be instructed to be more guarded against open attack.

"During their matches at Proliga, they were too open in their play. That backfired," he said.