Saturday 5 March 2011

Grange 4s @ Colinton Castle 4 – Friday 4th March 2011

CCS4 was a somewhat stronger team than the one we faced earlier in the week in the match potsponed from the first round and the 4ths went down by 19 points to 7 on this occasion. That 7 points was just sufficient to see the 4ths creep to the top of the relegation zone log-jam of teams ....equal 7th now....so lots to play for in the final two weeks.

At no3 Andy Whitelaw started poorly against James Chalmers with a 1-9 loss but came back well with a 9-4 and then a very narrow 9-10 loss. The fourth game was evenly fought but just slipped away from Andy 7-9 to leave him with a 1-3 match loss. A bit of luck here and there on key points could have seen it the other way round.

At no 4 was Mark Dutton against Derek Wilson. It was looking all over for Mark as Derek’s big-hitting was putting him away regularly to see him down 6-9, 4-9 and then trailing 2-5 in the third. But, digging a bit deeper Mark grafted a very hard fought 9-5 come-back in that game and then 9-6, 9-5 in the final two for a good 3-2 win. No quarter given by either player throughout in either the squash department or the verbal department...it would have to be said. An item of note would have to be the rare crowd-pleasing consecutive double-dive rally that saw Mark save an unlikely point at a key stage of the match.

Jonathan Frame at no2 had drawn the short straw to be facing Kim Byers. Kim controlled the match throughout forcing Jonathan to run to all corners of the court. Jonathon lost the first 2-9 and was well behind in the second before he finally managed to start forcing Kim to the back of the court more regularly. Not quite enough though as he lost that 7-9 and then the next 5-9 for a 0-3 loss.

By his own admission, Dougie Brown was just outplayed by Bob Bakie at No5. Doug was moved around the court too easily and couldn’t really manage to control the match at any point himself. A 7-9, 6-9, 4-9 loss was the result.

In a fast and hard-hitting final match at no1, Stephen Eyles just went down 2 games to 3 to Gareth Wright. Stephen snatched the first 10-9 and then Gareth began to get more control of the front of the court to take the second 5-9. Stephen easily took the third 9-2 as he improved his tightness to draw a series of errors from Gareth. The fourth game was the key one where it slipped away from Stephen. The game was there for the taking but control deserted him with a bizarrely high number of strokes given away from balls returned straight past himself being notable. He was also tiring a little (not surprised....so were we in the audience just watching) and began playing a few too many drops which was quite too Gareth’s liking as he picked the majority up and put them away convincingly. Having narrowly lost the fourth game, that same playing pattern featured in the final game with Gareth taking it comfortably 3-9. A very entertaining and high quality match, although bizarrely peppered with unforced stroke errors (mostly from Stephen) and unforced drop-shot errors (mostly from Gareth).

All to play for in the next two weeks to avoid relegation. The table is pretty tight and every game will need to be fought for tooth and nail.

Mark Dutton

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