Sunday 20 February 2011

Grange 5 home vs Watsonians 4(17/2/11)

Strength in Depth

At the start of tonight’s game, the Barbarians were lying sixth in the table, albeit with a game in hand. Watsonians were just below us. After a couple of call-offs, tonight’s team was Dave Grieve, myself, Pete Roberts, Richard Nisbet and Dean Wood – a testimony to the strength in depth in our Barbarians.

First up was Dean against a late Watsonians replacement who was playing his first competitive match for 2 years. Dean, of course, was professional throughout and was quickly off to play a mini-league game with a 9-1, 9-0, 9-2 win under his belt.

On the other court, Richard was having a tough game. In the first he went 5-2 down before coming back one point at a time as his opponent served 7 times at 5 points without scoring. But Richard’s perseverance endured and he won 9-6. In the second he raced off to a 7-1 lead before his opponent began to find range. As Richard tightened up, so the rallys got longer and longer and at 8-3 he lost 4 game points as the score moved on to 8-7. But he held his nerve to take it 9-7. The third followed a similar pattern with Richard moving to 6-2 up before being pegged back to 7-7. But some great retrieving saw him win out 9-7 for an excellent 3-0 win. 2-0 to Grange.

Next up was Peter Roberts in just his second competitive match. The steely look on his face said that last week’s hiccup was not going to be repeated. In the first game 8 serves were exchanged before the first point was on the board and the game ebbed and flowed back and forth to 6-6. At this point Pete continued his phenomenal running and closed it out 9-6. His superior fitness was beginning to tell now and roars of ‘how did you get that?’ and ‘not again’ told the story as he closed the match out 9-1, 9-3 for his first competitive victory. A great confidence booster. 3-0 Grange.

I was next on court in what turned out to be the match of the evening – but for the wrong reasons. In the changing room before hand I had been chatting to Peter from Watsonians and we’d been saying how it is good to get a good run about and not take it too seriously, after all it is the 5th Division. The first game was even to 2-2 when a run of points took me to 8-2 before closing out 9-4. That was fine, except for the constant whining and moaning from my opponent who challenged every point and the complained to the ref if he didn’t get the call. The same continued into the next game. At 5-4 up, he got a run to be 8-4 up when more poor behaviour led me to ask him ‘Do you want to play properly? Or do you just want to ‘leave’ off now?’. He just looked at me, but said nothing. Anyway, I managed to save the game point (again, more whinging) and recovered to 8-8 when he called ‘set 1’. I couldn’t close it out, neither could he, nor me, nor him before I eventually won (deservedly I thought) 9-8. Not much more to say from here except that his game improved, his behaviour didn’t and I began to tire and the next three were lost 5-9, 7-9, 2-9.

Dave meanwhile had had a tough match at number 1. A game against a strong opponent was made harder by a lack of match fitness following a bout of flu. The first were lost 3-9, 1-9 before a great recovery saw Dave take the third 10-8. But he couldn’t hold on and lost the third 5-9.

So, all-in-all a good 17-6 victory. Dinner was Franco’s finest and some good, if rather embarrassed, banter. That win takes the Barbarians up to second in the table. Next games are top of the table clashes with Edinburgh Sports Club and David Lloyd 2. (Report: Mike D)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was that veggie pizzas? Or were there meat options available?

Loob said...

We always order one veggie pizza and2 pepperoni pizzas to keep the veggies and the carnivores happy.

Two further varieties of pizza are the captain's choice on the night.

Dean said...

Being the only veggie I have come across so far, they order a veggie pizza for me! Plus I have a chippie on the way home to make sure I get my protein.