Threes at Watsonians 2's(Wed, Nov 23,'11)

After the maiden win last week hopes were high that the thirds could topple the Watsonians 2nds and it looked very much on the cards after the first two rubbers were won in fine style by Christy Looby and Stuart Moffat. But then reality struck and ..well…read on…

Christy Looby was first up at No 1 against top-performing Chris Weare and it has to be said that a routine win would have been anticipated by the Watsonians man given historic performance data. Christy however had other ideas and simply outplayed him in all departments to run out a very comfortable 9-2, 9-1, 9-4 winner. Christy's best performance of the season and two in a row for him now.

Fresh back from his Bahamas rugby trip, Stuart Moffat got quickly into his stride in his no5 match with Derek Davidson. Stuart has only recently resumed squash after quite a while out and he's been getting in a lot of matches lately and it's definitely showing. A very confident performance with power and touch in equal measure. A close 9-5, 9-5 tussle in the first two but Stuart always looked the more likely to move away with it and so it proved with a strong 9-0 last game.

Mark Dutton then went on at No2 against the very capable Graeme Murray. Graeme was simply too good with the volleys and drops and Mark was unable to move him from the middle of the court other than for a few brief hopeful periods. 2-9, 6-9, 5-9.

Richard Nisbet at no4 is playing better squash every week that he turns out for the thirds but on the night had a very difficult assignment against the very wily and unorthodox Peter Wilson. It was always very difficult to be sure what sort of shot Peter would conjure up out of thin air but Richard did a superb job of matching him virtually all the way. The first game went 7-9 and the second was a monster struggle that stayed 7-8 for what seemed like dozens of handouts till Peter grabbed it 7-9. The final game was similar and went the wrong way 6-9. A 0-3 loss was certainly not a fair reflection on the state of the match, but nonetheless that was the story.

It all depended on club stalwart Dougie Brown in his No3 match against Mike Robson. Nothing was given away by either player in a very cagey match where both players were content with protacted periods of percentage play each waiting their opportunities to strike. The only real difference in the end was the slightly higher success rate that Mike had when he chose his moments to go for it and maybe a tiny bit more fuel in the tank towards the end of a very long match. The final result was 8-10, 7-9, 5-9 and once again the 0-3 match result was a little unfair on paper to the Grange player.

The evening was completed in very fine style in the Watsonians bar with the usual monster servings of lasagne and salad and some fine beer and conversation. (Report: MD)

Pos	Player	Rubbers	Games	Points			Player	Rubbers	Games	Points
1	Christy Looby	1	3	27			Chris Weare	0	0	7
2	Mark Dutton	0	0	13			Graeme Murray	1	3	27
3	Dougie Brown	0	0	20			Mike Robson	1	3	27
4	Richard Nisbet	0	0	20			Peter Wilson	1	3	27
5	Stuart Moffat	1	3	27			Derek Davidson	0	0	8
Total		2	6	107				3	9	96
Competition Points		6						12