ESSA Leagues

2009/2010 Fixture #11 : Dunbar -v- Watsonians : 19.01.10

Dunbar travelled to Myreside on Tuesday evening to face the full might of the Watsonians Squash Team (or the full might of their 3^rd Team if we’re being strictly honest).

This was the first match for Dunbar since the season ending injury suffered by their No.2 Evan Green. It meant elevation for all those below him in the order, and would be the start of 8 very hard matches on what we hope will lead to League 3 survival….

Richard Baty -v- Mike Callaghan

Richard  was clearly moving better than had been the case in his last ESSA encounter. These courts at Myreside are always very warm and good length is possibly more critical here than most places. His opponent Mike Callaghan immediately settled into a very effective length game, and Richard was often left digging balls out of each corner only for Mike to counter drop for winners. Mike’s game is all about consistency, and so it was difficult for Richard to gain much of a foothold in any of the games. He hit his fair share of winners to get the serve back, and to put points on the board, but Mike was always able to hit back quickly and get the scoreboard ticking along to his benefit before Richard could gain any real momentum. 9-3, 9-2, 9-3 to Mike the final score.

Philip Revell -v- Ed Murray

Phil got off to a flyer in this one, but his inability to take the first game from 6-1 up possibly set the tone for the rest of the match. I was refereeing Richard and so missed this match, but Philip said the opening game was critical – Ed relaxed a bit and tightened up his game after getting out of jail in the opener, and Phil was chasing the match a bit after that. Ed has a more than decent record in the League and  was always going to be a handful. Another 3-0 to Watsonians, this time 9-7, 9-3, 9-2.

Graeme Jones -v- Jim Dougal

Graeme stepped up to made his debut in the third string position against a well known opponent. Jim plays all over the World in the Masters events – look out for him this year in Cologne as a dark horse in the World over 60 section! Jim also has a 100% record against Dunbar players, having beaten James Cunningham and Alistair Nichol. No long rallies in this match, Jim tries to hit a winner off every ball, and has an annoyingly high rate of success. Graeme chased everything as usual, and Jim probably realized that here was a player that would reach more of his trickle boasts than the majority of his opponents. However the scoreline ended up depressingly familiar for Dunbar, 3-0, (9-7, 9-6, 9-6) and the Match was now lost.

Alistair Nichol -v- Alistair Carruth

The No.2’s then took to the court. Alistair Nichol (AN) was playing Alistair Carruth (AC), a very correct player who had beaten Evan 3-0 in the first half of the season. AC plays an all court game, a style which Alistair of course doesn’t actually recognize. Why bother with four corners when you can just use the back two? AN then discovered, as he often does, that covering all four corners involves twice as much running, using twice as much energy, and thereby becoming twice as tired as your opponent (or at least equally tired, but in half the time!)  In an otherwise evenly fought contest, a pattern unsurprisingly emerged of hard fought rallies in the early stages of each game giving way to more and more errors from a tiring Dunbar player. Having said that AN pulled out some amazing retrievals and hit some hard forehand straight drive winners to take the second 9-7. That was his only success however, and AC wrapped it up 9-6, 7-7, 9-6, 9-5.

David Legge -v- Mike Sinclair.

I was playing Mike Sinclair - for the fourth time - and following a win in our first match, Mike had pretty much ‘cleaned my clock’ in our next two encounters. Clearly this was a rivalry that could develop along the lines of Jahangir –v- Jansher or Nicol –v- Power. The growing crowd took their seats in eager anticipation of how the fourth installment would play out? I started off very well in fact, and played solid, almost error free squash (no really) to take an 8-1 lead in the first. Although Mike steadied the ship a little, I continued to put the ball away when I had the opportunity to win the first 9-3. What then followed were three games of ridiculous retrieving on a very warm court, with neither of us wanting to make mistakes. It was a very tight match now, and I had two game balls in the second at 8-5 before losing it 9-8. I then lost the third – again on a tiebreak 10-8. The fourth saw me lead again – 8-5, and I think I had three or four game balls in that one before losing it 10-8. So a very disappointing evening ended in a disappointing 3-1 loss for me, (9-3, 8-9, 8-10,8-10) a game where I could just have easily have won 3-1.

So an 18-4 defeat and a feeling that we may be plotting our rise back up the leagues from Div 4 next year. If that’s the case then so be it, in the meantime we fight on. Next up are Linlithgow at home on Thursday 28^th. All welcome to come and watch.

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