Friday 23 November 2007

Seconds home vs Waverley Thursday 22/11/07

This division is proving to be a very difficult one indeed with an
extraordinarily high standard of opposition week after week. The seconds
are all continuing to play very well and everyone is giving their utmost but
once again the quality of opposition was just too much.

The evening started out very well with Pete Young at No 5 putting it to
Waverley's hyperactive jumping jack, Andy Murray. Pete won the first,
narrowly lost the second and third and won the fourth all being high quality
games. Andy stepped up the pace and left Pete behind in the last but it
could so easily have been a win in four rather than a 2-3 loss.

On the other court at No 4 Pete Tweedie started out where he'd left off on
the previous two weeks against the very imposing figure of Mike Reid ... ie
only gathered a few points to his name. The real Pete finally returned in
the third and he got as far as having a couple of game points but eventually
lost out 0-3. Had he manged to nab that game he would have been a special
to carry on for a win, but t'wasn't to be.

Dougie Brown was up next at No 3 against Alan Ramsay. The first game was a
close loss and then it just slipped further away in each of the next two.
Dougie seemed to be lacking his usual sharpness and was being put under a
lot of pressure by some very consistent width and angle play by Alan and he
seemed to spend most of the games digging awkward balls out of both back
corners. A very good performance by Alan to dominate one of the Grange's
most consistent players.

At No 2, Pete Cockburn's game against Niven Simpson was a festival of smacking the bejapers out of the ball, Pete was soaking up everything the big kiwi threw at him, forcing some tin-bashing out of Niven. However Peter ended up retrieving from near the back door which was never going to allow him to let go his own shots and move the big man around and turn him No an easy ask, this one went 3-0 to Waverley.

It was always going to be tough at No 1 for Mark Dutton against Rob Speight
and so it proved. Only a handful of points gathered in the first two games
although not playing badly at all. Just too consistent and mistake free a
performance from Rob. The third game saw Mark move to a well deserved 5-0
lead and dominate proceedings which showed what could have been.....but Rob
changed the game and put the stop to that upstart behaviour and eventually
grafted his way back to a 6-9 win.

All in all, the seconds need a huge turnaround from here as we're already
staring into the abyss. We've all learnt that losing feeling and it is a
bit hard to get out of that once it gets a grip ...but we have to give it
our best shot.

With the 100th dinner party on in the members lounge, we cobbled together a makeshift table in the committee room, the Waverley boys were impressed with the setting, the unusual variety of pizza's and the online booking system.

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