Taking place at the Halifax TT Centre, with Evergreens hosting, expectations were realistic in the POPPS camp, in view of the strong reputation of their opponents. In the opening set, John Taylor had the best result by winning his third game 11-4, but having struggled to find his form in the first two games, losing 11-5 and 11-4, he needed to keep control in game 4. Whilst even at first, Michael Curry edged ahead to win 11-5.Overall, Curry won 3-1.
Robin Thomas struggled against David Lewis, going down 11-4, 11-1 and 11-5, being inconsistent and impulsive, with only a small proportion of shots working. Mieszek Konrad fared slightly better against Michael Higgins, with some dogged back hand defence, but eventually went down 11-6, 11-3 and 11-4.
A pattern was beginning to emerge, although Taylor worked hard against Lewis, with a close first game ending with a narrow 12-10 victory to Lewis. The second game seemed even at first, but Lewis moved ahead to win 11-6, with a similar pattern in the third game ending 11-7 to Lewis. One had the impression that in skill terms, Taylor had the measure of his opponent, but inconsistent attacking shots impeded his progress.
Match 5 was held up while Konrad patched up a bleeding finger, but the result was not affected, and Curry won 11-4, 11-1 and 11-3, in spite of some athletic defensive work. Thomas against Higgins went the same way, each game being won to 4 (at least some consistency creeping in!). Similarly, Konrad succumbed to Lewis, 11-3, 11-4, 11-5.
Could Taylor recover some pride against Higgins? Well, it was close to start, and at one time it was 8 each, but in the final stages Higgins moved ahead to win 11-8. In the second, Higgins won 11-6 and rounded up the win with 11-7, despite some good smashes from Taylor. The final set, between Thomas and Curry, ended predictably at 11-4, 11-7 and 11-4, with some attacking shots, almost in desperation, salvaging some points.
Overall, POPPS failed to win one set, and only took one game. The message seems to be experience, consistency and match strategy. There is no substitute for sheer time spent practising and in the league and this POPPS team certainly learned from the experience. Our strongest teams can win against the right sort of opposition, but Evergreens may prove to be one of the better teams in this year’s League 3.
A warm welcome to our new POPPTT web site editor, Robin. Evergreens are possibly the strongest team in Division 3. I think they were in Division 2 last year and if so will be determined to go back up again asap. Given John’s results I suspect the match result would have been the same whichever team we fielded from our pool of 6. The main thing is to learn something from the experience – “there is no such thing as a failed experiment” (Einstein?)