Melbourn won 14-8

The Seconds travelled to Peterborough somewhat below the strength of the last couple of weeks (numbers #1, #2 and #3 from those Kate, Liam and Ed were all absent) and a little bit nervous of whether the team we actually put out would be good enough against 8th in the table Peterborough. It wasn’t exactly bare bones, but it did involve at least one player who wasn’t going to play due to illness coming back in at the last minute as someone else was feeling even worse!

First on court (Peterborough’s glassback show court, no less) for Melbourn was #5 Sean Hamilton, who took on Jacques Calitz. This was just Sean’s second match for the teams this season, and his first since playing in the reverse fixture in the opening half of the campaign. That lack of recent game exposure would ultimately prove his undoing as Sean was a little bit low on confidence to go for his kills, which was an issue against a player like Jacques who defended and ran well but one who didn’t have particularly tight attacking shots. The ball was there to attack, and Sean was a bit slow to realise. There was also an issue of Jacques’ tendency to hit the ball back towards himself and not only stay there but actually push up behind it, ready for a counter drop. In game one Sean was forcing himself in front of his opponent but finding no backswing due to the compressed space, which resulted in bunted drops that Jacques was able to chase down.
Despite all this the game one really turned on execution at the clutch moments as Sean fought back from a deficit to build a 13-11 lead… and then got tight, made an unforced error when he should have gone 14-11 up and then backed off his attacks. That allow Jacques to power through to take the game. Sadly exactly the same pattern held in game two (despite Sean calling some lets that were awarded as strokes in this one as he realised Jacques was too close) and game three was nearly the same without Sean ever edging ahead in the final stages. It finished 3-0 to Jacques.

Meanwhile on the non-show court two up Matt Walker (4) was taking on Pierre Caruso. Matt was comfortably the more classical of the two players – the question was whether he could be light and rapid enough on his feet to cope with Pierre’s ability to play unusual angles and also the home player’s hitting lines which are occasionally unexpected loose/squirting out. What Matt was looking to do was to make it an up-and-down the wall sort of game where Pierre was repeatedly having to turn and retrieve from the back corners. This meant tight, deep hitting and a nice high t-position to react to short balls. The first game was where Matt put the work in, both on his own game (settling in to a rhythm) and in terms of making Pierre chase more than he wanted, tiring the Peterborough player out. This worked well as, after edging that opener Matt, won the second and third with increasing ease to claim a 3-0 victory.

The match stood at string each when the third strings took to the glassback, Colm O’Gorman for us taking on Josh Fillmore. Josh is a highly promising young player, ranked no.3 in England at U13 level. But he is still only 12, and his Squash ability is ahead of emotional development to an extent. What he is great at is playing against conventional players, who will rally up and down the wall with him – he beat Matt 3-1 in the reverse fixture at Melbourn in the opening half of the season before losing. But Josh’s rapid improvement means he jumped up Peterborough’s order and was up against Colm this time, and Colm is what is known in Squash circle as “an awkward cove” (or some similar in meaning word to ‘cove’), who plays unconventional shots that only somebody with the wrist strength from his old sport of Hurling could even contemplate. These are not shots a ‘proper’ Squash player would take on… and not ones an individual who has had as much coaching as Josh has is really primed to move towards. This meant the kid was constantly off balance, which in turn meant resulted in him not catching the ball as crisply as he expected. And this was clearly getting under his skin. As long as Colm stayed concentrated and made sure he kept his foe both deep and twisting and turning then there was only one winner. Beyond a wobble midway through game two he did that to wrap up a comfortable 3-0 success. Good job, as he won’t be beating Josh again this lifetime…

Another Fillmore was in action at #2 string, Josh’s dad Jeff taking on Melbourn’s Gareth Jones. The opening game saw some early sparring before Gareth put together a run of points that managed to combine brutal hitting with icy coolness on the chop-drop, as he rattled away with the opening game. It was great, and the key thing was for Gareth not to think about it. Unfortunately, his teammates, who should probably have left well alone, instead gave him the advice to “keep doing what you are doing” which made he do exactly the wrong thing and think! Dangerous, because thinking comes with second guessing. There was little enough between the players that this turned the second game the other way, and then things looked bleak for Gareth when he also dropped a very close third. However going back to what worked in game one worked again in game four as Gareth dug in and played a more conservative and consistent game, cutting down the unforced errors. Gareth with few unforced errors is a real force at this level and that was enough for him to flip the narrative once again to level up at two-all and then race into a 10-2 lead in the third. Jeff is a determined soul and he didn’t give up despite the large deficit, but despite shrinking the gap he never really closed it as Gareth wrapped up a superb 3-2 win.

Gareth’s success meant Melbourn had the win on the evening prior to (actually more like a game into) Jan Brynjolffssen’s clash with Shane Maelane at #1 string. This was a good job because despite some well constructed rallies, and a decent chunk of points in each game, Shane moved too well for Jan, particularly laterally, which allowed him to mostly control the front wall. Jan tried what he could to match this and find some sort of counter, but this mostly involved taking too much risk – for instance, on one point Jan produce a very good winner by cutting a high backhand volley for a cross-court drop volley that was just above the tin. An excellent shot (if, truth be told, slightly miss-hit in execution) but not something to be repeated often. However, having found a shot to get out of a rally Jan went for it once more… and not only tinned it, but did so with Shane proving he was not going to be caught out be the same thing twice and standing poised to respond. Instead it was Jan who didn’t learn his lesson as he attempted the kill twice more in the match, each time to no avail. He just couldn’t punch the necessary holes in Shane who cut things out on the service line too well, and also had a lovely bunt out of tight back corners that sent the ball zipping back to a length when no backswing seemed possible. It all added up to a 3-0 defeat, which made the overall score 14-8 for us. Good enough on a night where we were slightly perturbed where the three winning strings would come from.