Luke Campbells Page

My first World Tour Event is now finished. What an experience, I saw and learnt so much from the week, it’s hard to remember it all clearly. From an Australian Team perspective it was a successful Event, with both girls’ teams making Main Draw with Bec and Heike finishing 7th. On the men’s side Chris and Sam Qualified in their own right for a Main Draw for the first time and had a number of people around the event asking about them, especially seem Chris is only 19 years old.

As for Casey and I, we didn’t get out of the qualification, in fact we lost our first match, 8-21 8-21 against a German pair. Certainly not a flattering result, and to be totally honest not a lot of positives can be taken from the match. But what is important for us to remember is that it’s only the beginning of something that started only recently. Also we really know how far we have to go to get to a competitive level and beyond.

Outside the single match in qualification we had some decent scratch matches, and finished with 2 wins and 2 looses from them which gave us something to feel a little up about. No that either of the teams are near being Main Draw, a win against someone you don’t know that plays on the World Tour is always a good thing.

On Saturday I teamed up with Sam for trainings, and we played against a Chec and Kazakhstani team. This was without a doubt for me the highest level I have played at. We were not perfect, but we had some plans and we stuck to them and really played well for good periods. It was very exciting.

Now we are all heading back to Adelaide for a good training block of around 3 months, where some massive gains will be expected and made in the gym and on the sand. After seeing live what is done on the World Tour I think it is easier to take those keys to the training environment.

I really think something big is being built, but only time will tell, and that time could be in August and September when I head back to the World Tour to see where I/we have gotten to.

Also, I scored playing shirts from Fabio and Pedro from Brazil and Barsuk from Russia, hope there is some of their skills in their sweat!

Well tomorrow is the day. We play qualification for Main Draw, not sure against whom yet, but will no doubt be a high quality team as we go in with zero points!

This week has been amazing so far, we have trained each day against some teams who play main draw regularly, who don’t make it at all and against some Olympians. Learning plenty would be an understatement. Today in our final hit out before qualification we played and beat Angola 2-1, one of their team played in the Olympics last year so Casey and I got a good kick out of that.

I have been relatively impressed with our form so far this week, that’s not to say we are perfect, we still have a long way to go and I realise that tomorrow will be a totally different situation in regards to pressure, nerves and possible opposition. We are going to take care of our game, play as hard and physical as we can and see where it gets us.

This afternoon we watch Lou and Alice qualify for the Main Draw in the women’s competition which was very cool, especially seems its Lou’s first World Tour Event also.

Right now I’m sitting in Adelaide airport, all checked in and ready to go to China to play in my first Swatch FIVB World Tour event. For me this is really exciting, I haven’t debuted for my country since 1998 so I’m sure I’ll get a bit nervous.

Since moving to Adelaide a month ago I have been training and learning a hell of a lot about beach volleyball, while indoor and beach are similar they are also very different in tactics and technique to a point.

In China I will be playing with Casey Grice from WA who I also live with in Adelaide, we have been training together this last month and I like to think we have made some big progress in this time. That being said, we are still a hell of a long way from where we want to get to, but we have made a good start.

The level and intensity of the gym and sand training has been really impressive, a lot is expected of us every day, as it should be, and we are really pushed to get better. I think it’s an environment I will thrive in, but only time will tell.

China is the first World Tour event for both Casey and me so we will be on zero points and be ranked last in the qualification seeding. This means we will play against the top seed in our first match, which is cool I think because it will give us a good indication of where we are and what we need to do upon return to Adelaide. But I think I know already, we need to train crazy hard and get a lot better. The qualification is single elimination so we have to win to progress.

I’m not 100% sure of what to expect from the week, but am definitely looking forward to seeing the best players in the world play over the weekend.

After Arabian Club Championships I had nearly a week off here in Jeddah which is really nice, not that there is a lot to be done around here, although I managed to experience a few firsts. Upon getting back I had 2 mental farts. One was leaving my back pack with laptop, passport, money etc in it on the bus when I got dropped off at the hotel, and the other closing my room door with the key in the lock on the inside and me on the outside! They had to break the lock off and install another. I’m still waiting for the third bout of stupidity.

A few nights after getting back the assistant coach called me to go out for coffee, which is all good. But then said he’d pick me up about 11:30pm, seems a bit late to me, but anyway. So we went to a cafe and sat and talked till 2:30am, and the place was full when we left, weren’t even a weekend, but he said that’s just the lifestyle here. On the way home we were turning left into a street and went through a red light to do so, with a police officer standing at the corner with his motor bike, and to top it off we drove up the gutter! But the cop wasn’t even fazed, seemed too busy with his ciggy, in fact he even laughed at us.

Last night at training our coach talked to the team for about 15 minutes before we started training, and the only translation I got out of it from him was that the mentality here is no good! Who knows what’s going on? Not me. Oh and I was also told later that he said we are no longer going to Egypt for preparation for Gulf Cup which is a massive shame, I was really looking forward to that.

On the weekend here I saw my team play a league match, I’m not allowed to play in the league, only in outside tournaments. The match reminded me of Montenegro because it was against a pretty much useless opposition, who I later found out was an ok team in the league. From what I’m now told there are two teams that can play and the rest are rubbish, exactly like Montenegro.  The crowd was about 10 people at the match, but I am assured there will be around 6000 for the gulf cup in 2 weeks.

Gulf Cup is the most important tournament for the team I’m told, as we have a good chance to win it. However with our prep tour being cancelled and no longer having any decent warm up games we now have a bigger challenge. Which was made bigger tonight by one of our starting receivers rolling his ankle, and unlike our setter in Lebanon I’m pretty sure he did it properly, it was looking rank when I saw it an hour later.

Given that most of our team finished the tournament last night I’m not surprised that we lost today in 5 sets. After the game last night there was no structured warm down for the first time, apparently you don’t need one when you lose, then my roommate was packing his things to head off, funny though because he doesn’t leave till Monday and finally there was today! Today we didn’t have breakfast, first time for the tourney, and then we didn’t watch video on the opposition which we have done for every game when the opposition is any good. So I don’t think the game was being taken seriously by either the players or the coaches.

All this leads beautifully to a five set loss to a team clearly not as good as us. At no point did either team play a high level of volleyball, it was more a match to see who could make the less stuff ups, and we made slightly more. Our setter went down with an ankle injury in the 3^rd set, screaming and howling, sounded really bad, so naturally he came off. Only to be totally fine about 15 minutes later, must have been a bad one!

We had a 14-13 lead in the fifth set, and from that point didn’t get the ball across the net for the game. Serve into the net, then massive block then spike into the net. Woops.

So we finished 4^th, which in the end was the goal, but really doesn’t feel that good! From here we go home for 10 days, then head to Egypt for a training camp and finish with Gulf Cup in Jeddah.

Just got back from our semi final and everyone is pretty quiet, we lost in 3 sets, the 1st two close, and the 3^rd far from it. I think we lost to a better team today, we certainly were not at our best, but I don’t think they were either, but they certainly played well enough to beat us convincingly.

We no doubt had our chances in the 1^st set, but again missed some easy defence balls, which is something I just haven’t seen from the team while I’ve been here. Most parts of our game were working with our blocking the standout, forcing them into many scrappy shots that we just didn’t get up to transition.

The 2^nd probably should have been ours, we had a good 5 point lead coming up to the 2^nd technical, which we earned by some massive serves. But unfortunately we had a rotation which we couldn’t get out of, losing the entire lead in one go. Then what tends to happen here is everyone starts pointing fingers, as does the bench, too many people talk and we lose focus and the set then match.

The 3^rd was a joke, they killed us in every aspect of the game and well done to them, they were no doubt better on the day.

Tomorrow we play off for 3^rd which would still be a very good result, the club goal was top 4 so we are there already. Although my roommate was packing his things tonight when we got back so I’m not really sure he is too interested in playing tomorrow, we will see!

I went into our quarter final not really knowing what to expect from our team. From the day I arrived I’ve been told that our setter is rubbish and the guys don’t handle pressure very well. Well you have to be kidding me, our setter is doing a great job for being so old and far from athletic and pressure, well smashing a team that some of our seemed in awe of last night when  we watched their game is not half bad.

We won tonight 3-0 against half the Qatar national team and a few imports, not a bad effort at all. Our serve and block was amazing, but our defence was off big time, so many off speed balls hit the ground or were uncontrolled, something we are usually on top of. But in the end it didn’t matter because we served and blocked so well.

After the match we went out for the traditional team dinner with the president of the club. The hotel food is pretty rank so this guy takes us around to various 5 star hotels for dinners, amazing man really. Tonight was a seafood restaurant and it was top notch grub. That’s just how we roll in Saudi!

Tomorrow we play the semi, and it’s a grudge match if there ever was one. It’s against the other team from Saudi who the president told me at dinner, “We don’t sit well with them”. They are a very impressive unit with a mad opposite who breaks the ball, looking forward to blocking him! So we have a massive task tomorrow given they have beaten us twice this season in the league. Bring it on.