The season opener at our new St Georges school venue began in a little confusion when the captain realised that there were no balls, scoresheets or scorecards available as there would be at the Grange and a little more forward planning will be required each week. Thanks to Pete Young for nipping down to the Grange for the necessaries.
The night started with Neil Love up against Graeme Parry at No5. Neil didn't really get into the match in the first two 1-9, 1-9 games but began playing good squash in the third that showed what could have been but a 6-9 loss in that game saw him quite disappointed to lose 0-3 to a player he felt he could have beaten.
Captain Mark Dutton was up next at No 2 against the very hard hitting Graeme Hunter. He didn't get to grips with Graeme's pace and extraordinarily good boasting in the first game to lose it 3-9. After that though, it was a different story with an endless sequence of uncharacteristically excellent (for him) forehand and backhand dropshots from everywhere in the court eventually sapping Graeme's will to live (shame to have used up a whole season's worth in one match). Throw in a number of very characteristic full length dive-drops and a corkscrew serve that actually worked (for once) and it was enough to run out the rest of the games 9-1, 9-3, 9-7 for a 3-1 win.
Pete Tweedie began very well at No3 against Richard Kent with a display of well-controlled pace and accurate lobbing to win 9-3. A close fought second game saw Richard back in it with a 6-9 but Pete then re-asserted dominance and continued with the controlled and accurate play and took the next two 9-7, 9-7 despite Richard's stubborn resistance to take the match 3-1. Pete's speed around the court was worthy of note, particularly one chased-down drive that had the gallery in some disbelief at Pete's ability to move that fast for anything other than last orders at the bar.
Pete Young took on Callum McKenzie at No4 and just failed to grab the first game, going down 7-9. A total domination of the second game followed with a 9-1 win leading the casual observer to believe that the rest would be a formaility. T'wasn't to be though with a 1-9 reverse demolition being dished out by Callum in the third. The fourth game could have gone either way but Pete was never quite on top and the 6-9 loss put the matter to an and for a 1-3 match loss.
Pete Cockburn had been playing well at the Grange lately (well..he beat me, anyway) but that form didn't transalte to his No 1 match with Chris Milne. He was very out of sorts for the first two games with a high proportion of mis-queued drops and failures to put away easy shots. Occasional glimpses of the real Pete came through and wwhen things were going well he dominated rallies completely, but seemingly inevitably it would unravel again. 1-9, 2-9 was the result of all that. A new Pete came out in the third game and a close tussle ensued with some good fast squash played on both sides. Unfortunately, the odd mistake would still crop up and Chris also chose that game to pull out some very tight dropping and boasting and the 5-9 loss left Pete with a 0-3 match to start the season.
Result: ESC5 beat GRG3 by 14 points to 7
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