By Lai Jun Wei

Presbyterian High (Black) defeated Fairfield Methodist Secondary 2-0 (25-12, 25-22) in the last match for both teams in Round 2 of the U-16 Girls Volleyball Championship recently. The result of this game caused Yuying Secondary to lose out on a place in the semi-finals.

Yuying needed Fairfield to beat Presbyterian High (Black) to go through. However, that likelihood disappeared when Fairfield Methodist fielded a team of reserves. Fairfield were already out of contention and the reserves got a chance to play.

The Yuying team were frustrated to see their semi-final place disappear, especially since Yuying had beaten Fairfield Methodist 2-1 and Presbyterian High (Black) 2-0 in previous encounters.

As Fairfield had lost three out of four of their Round 2 matches, their remaining match against Presbyterian High was inconsequential. The Fairfield Methodist coach therefore fielded his reserve players and retired some of his main players to the bench.

This gave Presbyterian High an easier task and they took advantage to win 2-0.

Despite the unhappiness in the Yuying camp, some readers in the Red Sports chat box felt that giving the reserves a chance to play made sense.

A reader by the name of Mel said: "As a coach, your players are down for every match but all they do is sit on the bench. How would you feel? Surely you’d want them to gain some exposure, isn’t it?"

However, another reader retorted: "(Fairfield) should know that if they did this, some other team will be out. So to put in reserves to let (the reserve players) have the feel, it’s like killing the other team’s opportunity to qualify.”

But Mel replied: "You’ve to think of your players and not other teams right? Deep down in your heart, some of your players, though not up to certain standards, have been training hard. They didn’t get a chance to play much in that particular tournament, so maybe the coach wants them to leech (sic) some experience from it?"

According to the players, their coach told them after the game his reason for fielding the reserve players was to give them exposure.