Toyama, Japan, September 16, 2015 – Poland overcame Canada 3-1 (23-25, 25-15, 25-19, 25-19) in the FIVB World Cup at Toyama City Gymnasium on Wednesday.
Poland coach Stephane Antiga: I’m happy with this victory against Canada. As usual, we had problems in the first set. We were not playing bad, but so often we let the opposition play well. I was happy with the reaction, and about Mika’s performance, so it was very positive that we started our series of three games here in Toyama well. Also I’m happy I won for the first time against my ex-coach Glenn Hoag; it’s a big pleasure.
Poland captain Michal Kubiak: We had problems at the beginning of the first set. This is how we start every game so this is the thing we have to work on for the next games. Then we pretty much controlled the second, third and fourth sets, so we are very happy we won this game. We have to concentrate on tomorrow’s game against Egypt to start it a little better.
Canada coach Glenn Hoag: Congratulations to Poland. For us I think there were some good things at times but we need to work on many things. Some of the areas we have worked on got better; our blocking was a little better, but Poland runs a good offence and have very good attackers. Our serving game wasn’t so good so we need to improve in that area and our receiving was difficult, especially in the second set. But we made some adjustments, which is good. I don’t think right now we can challenge a team like Poland, but we will retain the good things and try to build from there.
Canada captain Frederic Winters: I think this was a tough match for us and really frustrating. Poland dug a lot of balls; more than we were ready for. Apart from the second set, we had the lead in three of four sets and that’s a positive thing for us. The problem is giving up big runs of points on not necessarily their best servers. That really hurt us. We’ve got to figure out some solutions in block defence. We used to be quite strong in that area; now our level’s dropped off there and we don’t have the service game that some of the other teams have, especially in this round of the World Cup, so it’s going to be tough for us. We really wanted to take one point from this match and it’s a little disappointing that we couldn’t do that. The positive was to take one set. The first set was good for us. It was back and forth. Both teams went ahead and battled back, but after that, there wasn’t too much positive for us. We’ve got to find a way to play better in block defence and turn blocks into points.