Grange 4ths vs Colinton Castle 6ths 28/10/2009

The 4ths continued their barnstorming start to the season with a 20-3 victory of Colinton Castle 6ths. Everybody was comfortably in control of their matches at all times and periodic patches of resistance put up by the opposition were quickly met and matched.

The night began with Pete Young being untroubled to rack up a 3-0 win at No 5 against Steve Ford.

Next up was Mark Dutton at No 2 against John Sumner. A sluggish start by Mark saw the first two games being shared 9-5 5-9 but he gained full control from that point to go away 9-1 9-1 for a 3-1 win.

Then came Dean Wood at No4 against Chris Green. The first two games were won with only a few points going west but the third was more of a contest but was closed out 9-5 for a 3-0 win.

Following the trend of the evening, Andy Whytelaw played comfortably within himself at No 3 to record a 3-0 win against Mark Fairbarn with only a handful of points conceded.

The battle of the No1s rounded off the evening with Ian Forbes also being comfortable in running out a 3-0 winner against Gordon Robertson (would've been a tiny bit more comfortable if he'd called for a few more lets…ie strokes).

We can't finish this report without mention of yet another champagne moment arising from Mark Dutton's vain and often humorous attempts to befuddle his opponents with "corkscrew serves". Few who saw it will forget the occasion two seasons ago when an attempted corkscrew serve befuddled his opponent just enough for Mark to cop the return straight in the back of the head. The say that history never repeats itself. They are of course wrong. It can't be denied that on this occasion, the opponent was well befuddled but the unfortunate result of that was that he twisted himself all over the place in following the ball completely round the walls and entirely forgot which direction he was facing by the team he'd finally located the ball……and launched a full-blooded drive from one service box across to the other which hit Mark right in the ear while he was still posed in post-corkscrew serve position waiting for the photographers. He will clearly never learn…..