Comberton III match report 9th October

Comberton III is the Junior Development Team that plays in the Cambridgeshire Adult Leagues fifth division.
It is drawn from a squad made up from the Junior Coaches and the older Juniors with some Dads helping out as well. Steve Swanton is the Captain.

We will post reports on all our matches here and so, a little delayed, here is the gen on our first match a few weeks ago:

Team line-up: Rory, Neil, Mike, Steve, Martyn

Fresh-faced Comberton III met the (almost) all new Ely Leisure II for the first match of the leagues. Ely Leisure have been out of the leagues for several years but now are back.

Rory at fifth string started first but this turned out to be a marathon match as he challenged the veteran Ely player with long, long rallies. But it wasn't a case of talk among yourselves for the other players - they had their own axes to grind on the next-door court. Neil worked hard against the number 4 - even trying the old trick of tripping them up in the back corner. But unfortuately this was too late in the bout to turn his fortunes around.

Mike looked unsettled against a rather unorthodox left hander - coaching comments from clubmates advocating a more orthodox approach for our canny number three were, perhaps, badly judged as he tried to get into a rhythm. However even the rhymical chants of saint Frank of Snatra (patron saint of tight balls) were in vain and Mike fell by the wayside 3:0. Meanwhile Rory was still only at 5-all in the third...

Things were about to turn around for Comberton - and not just on that end court with Rory. Although Steve started a bit slow against the number two, he was soon fired up by a contentious call from the referee. He never looked back after this (except to watch his shots into the back corners of course - thank you, Bob) and powered through to a convincing victory. Reached, as Rory rallied in the fifth on the end court to pull back from 4:7 down to clinch a 3:2 victory.

Contentious calls also played a part in Martyn's 3:1 win at first string. His opponent worn down not, just by the rallies, but also by the rarer-than-rocking-horse-poo approach to lets from referee Mike.

At the end of the evening the games points were all square at 10:10 but Comberton gained the extra points for winning in matches. So that work from Rory on the end court really paid off.