The second round of North London Region National Junior League matches was held at Ellenborough on Saturday 21 November 2015.

After the first round of matches Chelmsford A were equal second, seven points behind leaders Ellenborough A, who they had to play in the afternoon. The Ellenborough Teams, however, had their problems with only five players between their three teams and the A team missing their top two players.

The A Team’s first match was against Fusion B who had a full team after being short of players in the first round. Ryan Gooday, Daniel Berry and Tanishq Kotwal all had comfortable opening 3-0 wins against Daniel Nzekwe, Hugo Dodd and Sergio Garcia. Ryan and Daniel remained unbeaten but Tanishq lost his other two matches, just failing to take Nzekwe to a decider when losing 15-13 in the fourth game.

Their second match was against the leaders Ellenborough A, who had only two players, Jaycee Chan and Aaron Fox, and were missing their top two. Ryan and Daniel again won their opening matches 3-0. Tanishq lost a close match with Jaycee 10, -11, 9, 8 but went on to beat Aaron 11-8 in the deciding game. In the last match Daniel lost to Jaycee -4, 8, 9, 10, his first defeat and a 7-2 win putting the team one point behind their opponents.

For their third match they faced a Fusion 1 Team who had just beaten third placed Barnet 7-2. They got off to a bad start with Ryan losing to Abdour Kelani -3, 3, 1, 6 but Daniel and Tanishq put them on course for the win they wanted with three grinding wins, Daniel 6, -7, -5, 10, 3 over Mahmood Kelani and -9, 8, 6, 10 over Abdour with Tanishq defeating Ricardo Parsons 14-12 in the third game. Tanishq lost his other two matches. .After building a 2-0 lead in the last match Ryan finally beat Mahmood 12-10 in the decider for a 6-3 win which gave the team a two point lead in the Division.

Chelmsford played third placed Barnet for the last match of the day. They all won their first matches, Ryan at 11-6 in his decider with Justin Rathe. Tanishq lost his last two matches but with Ryan and Daniel winning theirs a 7-2 win was achieved. This gave the team a six point lead at the end of the day.

For the B Team Harrison (Harry) Matthews came in to the team with Adam Chalk and Harry Rogers whilst Tejas took the day off to pursue University enquiries. After a first round bye their first match was against fourth placed BATTS A, a team who were to finish runners up at the end of the day. A 9-0 defeat, with both Harry’s losing in their deciding fifth games with Kamran Virdee. Adam took Ben Sivathanu to a fourth game by winning the third 16-14

Their next match was against Warren Springs B who were three points above them in the Table. Harry M won his three matches against Oliver Dorn (3-1), Matthew Ramayne (3-0) and Freddie Reilly (3-1), whilst Adam beat Freddie 9, 7, 12. Harry R. lost a very close match with Freddie 9, -7, 11, 11 so the team were unlucky to lose 5-4 and not win.

Their last match was against third placed Mossford 2. Harry M took Hirdaipal Jaswal to a deciding game and lost 3-1 to Muhammed Saleh who was part of the KEGS Team that won the Under 16 event at the Essex Schools Team event a week previously. Harry R took both Mohammad Raqueeb and Hirdaipal to a fourth game but the end result was a 9-0 defeat.

A Team           Ryan Gooday 9 out of 11, Daniel Berry 10 out of 11 and Tanishq Kotwal 5 out of 11

B Team           Harry Matthews 3 out of 9, Adam Chalk1 out of 9 and Harry Rogers 0 out of 9.

The day’s matches mean that each team has now played all the other teams in its division. Before the first round of matches it was circulated that there would be the possibility of promotion/relegation between the Divisions if determined to be appropriate. Looking at the Tables for each Division the potential for promotion/relegation does exist but I do not know if it will. If it does each team will start again with no points and final table positions determined by the results of the next two rounds of matches only.

The next round will be four matches on Saturday 16 January and finishing time is likely to be 5.00 to 5.30pm. For Division 2 the Team will have a bye in the fourth round of matches.

DIVISION 1 TABLE 

DIVISION 2 TABLE

Arthur C. Clark - Chelmsford Junior Match Secretary