| Report: | Tonight was a closely fought affair, with three strings being stretched to five sets. It was, however, ultimately a disappointing night for the home team.
With Risca strings four and five sauntering on court like a couple of playful shih tzus, the optimistic gait of four was ill-founded, but in the case of five, it was entirely justified. Both Ben at four and Kyle at five were conceding a considerable SL points advantage to their younger opponents. String four went according to the form book, whilst Kyle scored a notable upset at string five and can likely look forward to a substantial SL points boost in the morning. Stevie Cheese no doubt shall divorce himself from any sense of amusement and will likely insist that the matter of who should play 1 for the C team be settled like real men settle such things, rather than being bigged up by Jethro’s moving feast algorithm.
Up next were strings one and three, with JCS entertaining fellow steak sceptic, Luca. Luca’s protein replacement programme is clearly more effective than Big J’s, with a 3-0 win duly secured for the visitor.
Having played squash for Risca since 1928, I was forced to play on court 2, my least favourite sweat box, for only the second time. I struggled to put that behind me in the first, slipping to a 10-15 reversal before securing the second. Now, I’m not the kind of person who revels in the pain of others, but seeing Luke take a tumble in the third made my heart sing! Alas, it was all a ruse: a psychological construct designed to disorientate and dishearten. It was effective, as Luke took a 2-1 advantage before I managed to level proceedings to force the tie-break. Alas squared, with atrophy rampant in my tired and world-weary sinews, and entropy chasing any sense of calm and order from my mind, I slipped to a 2-3 defeat.
That left string two as something of a dead rubber. With Lew engineering plenty of opportunities only to reacquaint himself with the sharp, discordant cacophony of rubber on tin, and of rubber on tin, and of rubber on tin, he too slipped to a 2-3 reversal.
Afterwards, we scouted the rule book looking for some redress for having our arses handed to us, in some Trumpian denial of facts. Alas, Nick Edwards has not (yet) catered for such petulance, and the cupboard was bare, just like the trophy cabinet after tonight.
Still, these are the midterms and there is still time yet to make Gwent Squash Great Again! Might we yet see the return of our very own Pete Hegseth, Minister of War….? Time will tell. |
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