A league loss to Dulwich 3-4

Could we follow up on our previous success? Well, on a scorchingly hot day (the temperature hit 32 degrees) it turned out not, but it was close.

The morning went pretty well to handicap, albeit with a narrowish loss in the Doubles which might have been a win if Alex had managed to complete a long last turn from an early hoop, including peeling Jon’s ball through Rover. In fact for the first in a very long time we went into lunch early with all games completed, 2-1 to Dulwich.

In two quick games Simon was just too good for John and Mick similarly for Peter, so with the match poised at 3-2 the result would be determined by what was happening on the other lawn.

Both Mark and Jon were making mistakes, but Jon was making less and ran out the winner (an excellent result for him), despite some alarums after running Rover and not being able to hit his reception ball. So it was 3-3 and all depended on Alex.

Well, blow me, but Pierre did the same as Jon and couldn’t hit his partner ball after Rover, so giving Alex a final chance. Sadly Alex wasn’t quite able to capitalise and despite some toing and fringe failed a long roquet attempt which allowed Pierre to finish.

So the margin was as predicted on the basis of handicaps, but not quite achieved in that way!

Detailed results:
AM: Jon Diamond (0.5) & Alex Jardine (2.5) lost to Mark Ormerod (-1.5) & Pierre Beaudry (0) -7; John Greenwood (3) beat Peter Haydon (9) +23, Mick Belcham (6) lost to Simon Carter (4) -23
PM: Jon beat Mark +20; Alex lost to Pierre -14; John lost to Simon -22; Mick beat Peter +15