Tokyo, October 30, 2006: When the Poles turned up for training at Yoyogi Gymnasium on Monday, a familiar face was missing.
It was that of head coach Andrzej Niemczyk, who has become a fixture of the Poland team on their regular visits to Japan.
Niemczyk resigned due to health problems two months ago and his assistant, Ireneusz Klos, was promoted to head coach for the World Championships.
The players, however, don't think the recent change has affected their preparations too much.
"The head coach now was our second coach before, so it was not a big change. He knows us and we know him," said Katarzyna Skowronska, after the training session.
"He has been trying to make the same exercises we made with Niemczyk, but of course he has put his new experiences and ideas into the training because every coach has his own system of play."
The Poles will be missing two leading players in Malgorzata Glinka, who is injured, and Dorota Swieniewcz, who is pregnant, while Skowronska and Maria Liktoras are both recovering from recent surgery.
"We need to believe in ourselves really hard to play, because the truth is we have some health problems," added Skowronska.
"If the team has belief, everything can happen."
Poland will play in Pool A and open against Kenya on Tuesday afternoon. The 11th-ranked "African Queens" are very much an unknown quantity to the ninth-ranked Poles.
"I don't know anything about them," she admits.
"We haven't even seen a video of their games, so it will be a spontaneous game for us.
"After the warm-up we can see how their girls play, and the first set will be a big lesson for us."
