WEYMOUTH 0

RICHMOND BUCKS 3

WEYMOUTH Beach Volleyball Club lost their first home National League Division One match of the season as an impressive Richmond Bucks won 3-0 in sets at Redlands.

This was always going to be a difficult match for Weymouth with their opponents including a number of England junior players, while their setter Enrico Bello was playing beach volleyball for England in Brazil just two weeks ago.

On top of that Weymouth had their own issues. Last week’s cup match had to be cancelled after a number of the Weymouth players tested positive for Covid.

Although none of the squad were now isolating there had to be some doubts about the players' fitness level,s particularly Weymouth’s England junior Archie Golding. As a result,he was left out of the starting line-up.

READ MORE: City of Bristol 1-3 Weymouth - match report

The match started evenly with Weymouth taking an early lead 6-4 with storming serving from Valdis Baravovs and outside hitting from Stephen Williamson.

However, Richmond got into their stride and the teams traded points through most of the set. However, at the crucial stage in the set with the score at 17-17, Richmond’s experience and consistency showed up and they pulled out a lead to win 25-20.

The second set saw Richmond get off to a flying start, pulling out a strong lead. Weymouth were finding it hard to score points from their own service and Richmond’s very powerful attacking dominated the set.

The introduction of Golding to the match could not stem the tide and Richmond ran away to a 25-16 win.

Weymouth began to look more like their best in the third set with better service reception from Liam Tewkesbury and Elliott Sawyer plus blocking from Ollie Smith, Sam Groom and Darren Harding.

The scores were closely matched but at that point Weymouth's bad luck continued when Golding fell awkwardly and sprained his ankle.

His injury seemed to upset Weymouth’s rhythm and Richmond were able to establish their dominance once again, going on to win 25-18 and seal a 3-0 victory.

Weymouth are at Redlands on Saturday (1.15pm) when they take on another of the division's top teams, Stockport, who are currently in second place in the table.

Weymouth, who are now in sixth place, will definitely be without Golding whose injury now means he is unlikely to be fit before Christmas.