Back to League fixtures this week which saw the A Team travel to Wantage & the B Team host Abingdon RBL.
At Wantage, Captain Pete was first on v Phil Hall. It was a predictably close fought affair. Captain had the lions share of the running & edged the lead with some nice potting before a late charge from Phil. He missed a pot on the green & Pete took full advantage potting the green, slamming the brown into the middle & screwing back for the blue, which he potted with the rest in the 'yellow' bag for frame, 47-33 & 0-1 to the A Team.
Nigel (VC) was on next v Sean Dorian. Sean was potting some outrageous long reds down the rail, but VC was keeping his nose in front throughout playing some good solid matchplay. Nigel had an opportunity to secure the frame when he potted green & then missed an easy brown to the corner dropping lovely position on the frame ball blue! He missed the brown(!), but a few shots later redeemed himself (& then some!) with a fabulous long pink down the rail for frame, 45-35 & 0-2 up!
Tom was up next v Matt Todd. Tom's been cueing beautifully recently (buoyed by his successes in the QFs of Novices & Singles?) & was firing in some lovely pots & playing good positional play too. Matt was potting erratically & slammed several balls round the table & when it looked like Tom was going to secure the frame, Matt potted the final black to make the scores level! Re-spotted black to decide it then! After Matt won the coin toss & put Tom in, the A Team sat there knowing exactly what shot Tom would try... doubled black! Tom struck it lovely... (for a double double!) & it just 'jawed' & sat in front of the pocket for Matt to sink! Frame score was 54-61 & A Team still in the lead, 1-2 up. Good effort & good entertainment from Tom (& the highest aggregate score of the night!)!
In the 4th frame, Kev 'Super Sub' Gray took on Ian 'Sid' Barnes. In what was a very scrappy frame, neither player could make a frame winning contribution or even pull a decent lead! In fact the only winner was...good running n flukes! In reality that meant Sid beat Kev 50-35 so it was now 2-2!
Cue Anchorman Dave to try to get the all important win & he faced Wantage stalwart Duncan Neilson! Duncan started with intent, potting some lovely balls & stringing together a few colours! Dave wasn't going to 'cake walk' this one! He hung in & in typically determined fashion (bouyed by hard practice sessions eh Daddy G?), he 'toughed it out' & played good experienced matchplay to win on the pink, 47-37.
So an all important 3-2 away win v Wantage who were 6 points ahead of us in 2nd place in the League was then reduced to 5 points! The A Team have 2 games in hand so need to secure 6 points or more during Wantage's bye weeks to take League Runners Up spot.
Meanwhile, back at Wallingford, Simon 'Super Sub' Ellam (playing only his 2nd match frame of the season!) opened the match v Abingdon RBL playing against Phil Skinner. It was a nip & tuck affair which Simon secured the 1st point when Phil went 'in off' the final black to gift Simon a 44-40 win & put the B Team 1-0 up.
Frame 2 saw Captain Kev face Paul Archer. It was a good game of match snooker with both players playing well but Paul came out on top with Kevin losing 31-64. Maybe Kevin was knocked off his stride when he had 2 'misses' called against him by referee Doug Young? Serious stuff! 1-1.
Frame 3 saw the Battle of the Big Guns with Dave 'Club Singles Champ' Rowe facing Nigel Archer. Dave played a good game & the result could have gone either way, but it was Nigel who secured the win by potting blue & pink to win a good game 36-49 for Abingdon RBL to take the lead 1-2.
In the next frame Andy Rance went down to Harvey Pearce 29-63. Harvey (despite his recent shoulder injury) was far too strong on the night & Andy was not quite at his best. So 1-3 to Abingdon RBL & with the match win secured it was left to Rob House to fight for some B Team honour.
Now, the frames had taken a little longer than normal (judging by the texts flying back & forth between A & B Team Captains) & the B Team only broke for supper after frame 3 well after 9.30pm(!). So when the last frame commenced at 10.30 & Rob's opponent was Doug 'Scrape Me Off the Table' Young, there was always the potential for a late finish! Imagine the surprise from the A Team when Captain Pete's A Team Taxi arrived back at the Comrades at 11.30 to find the final frame had ONLY JUST FINISHED!!! Fortunately, Rob secured the win 54-24 having lead throughout.
So a final score of 2-3 home loss for the B Team. With an away match next week v Fawley (the furthest team distance to travel), I'd recommend not quite such a late finish lads... unless of course you do want a McDonalds breakfast on the way home!!!
At Wantage, Captain Pete was first on v Phil Hall. It was a predictably close fought affair. Captain had the lions share of the running & edged the lead with some nice potting before a late charge from Phil. He missed a pot on the green & Pete took full advantage potting the green, slamming the brown into the middle & screwing back for the blue, which he potted with the rest in the 'yellow' bag for frame, 47-33 & 0-1 to the A Team.
Nigel (VC) was on next v Sean Dorian. Sean was potting some outrageous long reds down the rail, but VC was keeping his nose in front throughout playing some good solid matchplay. Nigel had an opportunity to secure the frame when he potted green & then missed an easy brown to the corner dropping lovely position on the frame ball blue! He missed the brown(!), but a few shots later redeemed himself (& then some!) with a fabulous long pink down the rail for frame, 45-35 & 0-2 up!
Tom was up next v Matt Todd. Tom's been cueing beautifully recently (buoyed by his successes in the QFs of Novices & Singles?) & was firing in some lovely pots & playing good positional play too. Matt was potting erratically & slammed several balls round the table & when it looked like Tom was going to secure the frame, Matt potted the final black to make the scores level! Re-spotted black to decide it then! After Matt won the coin toss & put Tom in, the A Team sat there knowing exactly what shot Tom would try... doubled black! Tom struck it lovely... (for a double double!) & it just 'jawed' & sat in front of the pocket for Matt to sink! Frame score was 54-61 & A Team still in the lead, 1-2 up. Good effort & good entertainment from Tom (& the highest aggregate score of the night!)!
In the 4th frame, Kev 'Super Sub' Gray took on Ian 'Sid' Barnes. In what was a very scrappy frame, neither player could make a frame winning contribution or even pull a decent lead! In fact the only winner was...good running n flukes! In reality that meant Sid beat Kev 50-35 so it was now 2-2!
Cue Anchorman Dave to try to get the all important win & he faced Wantage stalwart Duncan Neilson! Duncan started with intent, potting some lovely balls & stringing together a few colours! Dave wasn't going to 'cake walk' this one! He hung in & in typically determined fashion (bouyed by hard practice sessions eh Daddy G?), he 'toughed it out' & played good experienced matchplay to win on the pink, 47-37.
So an all important 3-2 away win v Wantage who were 6 points ahead of us in 2nd place in the League was then reduced to 5 points! The A Team have 2 games in hand so need to secure 6 points or more during Wantage's bye weeks to take League Runners Up spot.
Meanwhile, back at Wallingford, Simon 'Super Sub' Ellam (playing only his 2nd match frame of the season!) opened the match v Abingdon RBL playing against Phil Skinner. It was a nip & tuck affair which Simon secured the 1st point when Phil went 'in off' the final black to gift Simon a 44-40 win & put the B Team 1-0 up.
Frame 2 saw Captain Kev face Paul Archer. It was a good game of match snooker with both players playing well but Paul came out on top with Kevin losing 31-64. Maybe Kevin was knocked off his stride when he had 2 'misses' called against him by referee Doug Young? Serious stuff! 1-1.
Frame 3 saw the Battle of the Big Guns with Dave 'Club Singles Champ' Rowe facing Nigel Archer. Dave played a good game & the result could have gone either way, but it was Nigel who secured the win by potting blue & pink to win a good game 36-49 for Abingdon RBL to take the lead 1-2.
In the next frame Andy Rance went down to Harvey Pearce 29-63. Harvey (despite his recent shoulder injury) was far too strong on the night & Andy was not quite at his best. So 1-3 to Abingdon RBL & with the match win secured it was left to Rob House to fight for some B Team honour.
Now, the frames had taken a little longer than normal (judging by the texts flying back & forth between A & B Team Captains) & the B Team only broke for supper after frame 3 well after 9.30pm(!). So when the last frame commenced at 10.30 & Rob's opponent was Doug 'Scrape Me Off the Table' Young, there was always the potential for a late finish! Imagine the surprise from the A Team when Captain Pete's A Team Taxi arrived back at the Comrades at 11.30 to find the final frame had ONLY JUST FINISHED!!! Fortunately, Rob secured the win 54-24 having lead throughout.
So a final score of 2-3 home loss for the B Team. With an away match next week v Fawley (the furthest team distance to travel), I'd recommend not quite such a late finish lads... unless of course you do want a McDonalds breakfast on the way home!!!
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