DLR 1st Team Match report for 27th January 2010

To see all DLR match reports click here – and to see DLWE match reports click here

It was a good match for us tonight and William Hill are once again quid’s in (unless Ian C got a quick bet on – with a double on Man.U scoring 3 in the 2nd half!!).

Henry was on (and off) before I got there (against John Bannister at No.5), so I missed this one, but it’s amazing how differently people see the same game, don’t you think? Here’s the gist of it:
Henry – “I should have won the first game it was very close 13-15 and he was just a bit lucky and I was still half asleep.”
John B – “The first game was hard fought but I always thought I’d win it.”
Henry – “I dominated the second game and really thought that I’d found my form – I won it 15-4.”
John B – “For some reason I tried different tactics in the 2nd game and slowed it down – this was a disaster and I got chopped”
Henry – “Because the 2nd was so easy I relaxed too much in the 3rd game and he got right back into it and won 11-7 (ish)”
John B – “I just reverted back to doing what I did in the 1st game and won this game easily.”
Henry – “Well you know what it’s like when you mentally turn off in a game – it’s hard to turn back on again. That’s what happened in the 4th game, although it was tight if I’d been switched on I’d definitely have won it, but instead I lost 14-16.”
Sean – “Henry was rubbish in the 5th and I can’t believe that he lost so easily to someone I thrashed!”

Next up was Sean and he played Alan Susskind at No.4 and Alan was really in control of the first two games and won them easily. There was some discussion about a ball that hit Sean and was going to the front wall, but for some reason Sean managed to talk the ’stroke’ into a ‘let’ and the game went on. Sean managed to not let Alan have it all his own way after this and managed to get the ball behind him (there’s only one way to beat them, get round the back!) and had a lot of success in the 3rd game. It was tough in the 4th game as well, but Alan got back into his stride and started hitting the corners again and managed to close the match out 3-1.

Lyall was on next against Mark Ford at No.1 – so with no warm up Lyall went on and started very slowly. This is not the best tactic against someone with the racket skills and awareness of Mark and so he proceeded to lose the first as Mark played really well and finished the game with a backhand-nic-kill.
This really got Lyall going and he responded in tremendous fashion. He really worked Mark around the court and made every point a tough on. This began to take it’s toll on the ‘old man’ (!) and soon Lyall…………………………………
(Scotland’s funniest squash pro???!?!?!?! Really!! It’s official! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJEXHCZ9lNY&feature=channel )
was in control of the match. He won the next three games with some good controlled squash mixed with flashes of inspiration!

Kev went on next against Paul Sweeney and I was also on shortly afterwards so I didn’t see Kev’s match. Apparently it was hard fought with Paul just losing the 1st and making a big comeback to win the 2nd. The 3rd and 4th both went to Kev and so the match was won 3-1. Kev was seen a little later looking far from happy about dropping a game (although ‘far from happy’ is Kev’s normal face, so it’s a little hard to say just how miffed he was! ).

I went on last and if you’ve been counting you’ll know that it’s 2-2 in ties! The rest of the team are starting to think that I’m just wanting to be the glory guy who brings the match home, but I’d have to say that this would be a bit presumptuous and not at all like me at all! Anyway my opponent, Mic Cockburn, almost beat me last half (3-2) and so I had to be really up for this one.
I had a good start and won the 1st game, but in the 2nd Mic got into his stride and started battering the hell out of the ball. The ball got so warm that I could hardly control it (nothing new there then I hear you say!) and started serving our regularly. I managed to win the 2nd, but was 4-8 down in the 3rd game and hitting the tin at regular intervals (due to the pressure Mic was putting me under). At one point all the tins got too much and I yelled “STOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT” – which was a mistake as I couldn’t breath for the next three rallies! Anyway I did ’stop it’ and instead just shut up shop and hit everything to the back. There was one really long rally and thankfully Mic was on the end of it (the wrong end) and I could see that he was breathing very hard afterwards, so I just tried to keep the rallies long at this point and it seemed to work as I made my way back to win the 3rd rubber and the game and the whole match! All thanks to me and the glory was all around me …………………………….. errrrrr………… OK maybe the guys were right after all!!!!!

Cheers

Jason