Mens Results 19 May 2009

Reports have now come in from the Men's teams.

• All 3 men's team had a count back scenario. Unfortunately only Tony's team came out on the right side of the ledger.
• As Tony reports below, the Men's 1 team had a good win to avoid a relegation match. Unfortunately the Men's 2 team can't say the same -we have a relegation match against Collegians next Tuesday night. We can kick some butt though I'm sure. Men's 3 fought hard but had a narrow loss to Island Bay.
• Tony has written the next novel in the Dan Brown series (his report below). Although full of drama and suspense, it is unlikely this one will be a big screen smash though (like The Da Vinci Code and Angels andDemons). A very good read though Tony!
• Rules and refereeing evening is still next week - Thursday 28th May at the clubrooms starting 7.30 pm. See you there.

Julian

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Men's Div 10B team were at playing away and lost against Island Bay..... James Hippolite reports....

• Dikesh, our one and only D2 player, just back into the fray after a period away, played an opponent of ungraded but roughly comparable skills. Dikesh won 3/0.
• Bruce, our E1 senior, played Steve, another ungraded but skilful player. Bruce lost 3/0.
• Jordan, our E1 junior, played Josh. Jordan lost 3/0.
• Werner, our E2 junior, played Brian. Werner won 3/1.

Island Bay won 7 games to 6.

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Men's Div 6 team were at home and lost to Mana..... ring in Dan Batchelor reports....

• With the Northern men's 2 team cemented firmly at the wrong end of division 6 they had to get the big guns in this week for the clash with Mana, but unfortunately to no avail, going down 2-2 on matches and 9-7 on games...Promotion relegation now beckons next week.
• I played at number one against Brent Smyth, a similar graded player and in the end was lucky he ran out of steam after he had me on the ropes early. A dodgy call from Brent for set 1 in the second game lead to a 9-8 northern win and was the turning point.
• At number 2 Andre went the same way as Brent, running out of puff after fighting hard throughout to go down in 4 close ones against John Poppleton.
• Meanwhile, Alan had the misfortune of coming up against an improving Rob Greene and the superior fitness of the youngster once again proved to be decisive.
• Finally, the match of the night was between the number fours and was certainly a game of two halves with Matt taking on the higher graded Chris Mundy. Chris took out the first two games fairly convincingly, but at last Matt sprung into action in the third game, (spurred on by a few dodgy calls from the ref) he pulled out two skunkings in a row followed by a fairly lop sided score in the final game to win in 5 and pick up a bundle of points for his efforts.
• Squash was the winner on the night.

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Men's Div 3 team were at home and beat Fraser Park.....Tony Blackler reports....

• We went in sitting in relegation spot, knowing we probably needed to win, and win well to avoid relegation - in fact it was possible that we could still be on the bottom of the table after winning 3 of the 5 weeks!! - go figure !!
• We took on Mike Leigh and has Fraser Park cohort ...
• 1st Craig D playing at #3 - started the match with precision drives and artful drops to take immediate command - won the 1st and then went on to chase down a big lead to take the 2nd - clearly on our way to our 1st victory ... NOT ... the other guy came back and turned the match into a great battle and after 3 games that went long pulled off a win in 5 ...darn! - but Craig played well and we had our 1st 2 points in the bag...
• 2nd Jason S playing at #2 - he has been playing really well of late and utterly controlled the match from beginning to end running his poor opponent ragged in the process. 5 points now and looking good ...
• 3rd was Andrew P playing at #1 Vs past Northern club champion Mike Leigh- this was going to be the tough one - Andrew protecting a pulled muscle and really up against it - we needed him to get at least a point or two to help us avoid elimination ... Andrew out to a quick lead, his combination of length and deft drops keeping him on top of the game, and keeping Mike scrambling, an easy win in the 1st, great stuff. On to the 2nd and it was only a matter of time before Mike warmed up and we were nervously anticipating that 1st big stretch he would force Andrew into -that could be the end of things ... however Andrew continued his dominance over Mike and again easily took the 2nd ... could it be?, might Andrew get away with playing injured?, into the 3rd in this now crucial match, again total dominance over Mike and an easy win - Well done #1, great effort and beyond our expectations.
• We had now secured the nights win and with that bonus point we now had 9- possibly enough but if either team above us scored more than 6 points that night we would still be on the bottom - still needed just a few more to try to make us safe ...
• Last to play was Craig H - he's been playing well lately and he was our 'ace in the hole' positioned down at #4 - our confidence was starting to glow ... 1st game, full of confidence and his cheeky grin (which normally means lots of little drops and fancy shots coming up -sometimes not all good ...) his opponent admittedly looked as if he would be more comfortable in front of a computer screen or in the frontrow of a "star trek" convention, however looks were deceiving and this boy could hit the ball hard and clean, possibly catching Hoppy by surprise (as with the rest of us) as he went down initially before mounting a comeback - things now even at 1-1, Hoppy showed a little more precision and poise in the 3rd to take the lead before coming out in the 4th with .... yup, that cheeky little grin was back ... oh, oh ... down again in the 4th but a really good close game, now 2-2 and heading into what was probably the longest game of the night (well it certainly felt that way for us watching it anyway) .. another really close one but unfortunately not in our favour as Craig went down in 5. We will remember this guy for next time - he isn't what he looks like ... he's actually a pretty good player ...
• At nights end we had secured the team win and a total of 11 points -probably enough we thought, but still no guarantee ...
• With the posting of the initial results early Wednesday morning we finally saw the outcome of our efforts, we had avoided the dreaded relegation playoff spot through the marvellous efforts of our players and of Martinborough (our new best friends) who destroyed poor Waikanae placing them now in the relegation seat.
• Well done to all the team - you have earned a weeks rest.