Wednesday's match was against Selly Oak XS 'B' who were a decent side last
year, but now Dave Brown has joined them, they are one of the title
favourites. In fact, they were league leaders prior to the game, so we knew
we were in for a difficult evening.
Luke Ellis was first up against Alan
Pickerill. Luke was marginally favourite, but it was probably always going
to be fairly close and, so it proved, with both players knocking in some
decent shots, but neither getting a sizeable lead. It all came down to the
pink with Luke needing both colours. There were a couple of half chances
missed on both sides, but then Luke was faced with a fairly simple safety
shot. The pink was near the side cushion by the yellow pocket and the cue
ball was fairly central. He could have played several different safety shots
and maybe that was the problem in that he ended up playing a nothing shot
and leaving Alan with the pink near the yellow pocket to win the frame.
Alan Carter was next and was always
going to struggle against Dave Brown. In fairness, he played pretty well and
certainly did not get overawed, but Dave's class told and although he did
not put in a huge break a couple of 30s were enough to win it.
Dave Thomas played probably their
weakest player, but in truth, he is still a better player than Dave. Dave
was always behind and missed a couple of relatively good chances to get back
in contention but frankly he deservedly lost.
Ian Rawlings played Pete Hodgkins who
used to practice with Mark Sutton and who got the closest to beating Mark
last season. Ian played well, particularly some good safety, but as often
the case, he did not take advantage of the chances he created and he never
managed to pull away from Pete. Pete then did string some balls together and
ultimately killed off the game.
So we were 4-0 down going into the
last frame. Surely, with Mark Sutton last, the unthinkable whitewash could
not happen. Mark played John Healy who he rates very highly. Mark had a good
chance early on and missed a long straight red. John then began to put
together a series of smallish breaks, each around 20, but when he ran out of
position, he left nothing for Mark.
In fact, Mark only had one other
chance in the match, but could not manage to make much of a dent in the
deficit. He then seemed to start going for shots he should not have and
ended up losing convincingly. It was a shame as that was his first loss for
us - previously he'd won 27/27. He is playing nowhere near the level of last
year though and eventually, that was going to tell.
