Here's some thoughts on last night's game, which ended in a 9: 1 home win for Morpeth A.

Dan Shoop was playing up from Karma's B team, but you wouldn't have guessed it. I took the first two ends relataively comfortably in our match, but he came out all guns blazing  to take the third and fourth, with big, impressive hitting on both flanks, a theme that was to continue for the rest of the night, and which also included a very impressive third leg against Matt. I'm told he has new rubbers and doesn't always play quite so aggressively. Perhaps he should.

Matt versus George looks a relatively straight forward affair, but that doesn't tell the story of the first end, which was finely poised at 9:8 in Matt's favour, before he summoned up two unplayable edges to seal the deal, with first the most delicate of edges off the end, and then a propostrous return from right up against the back wall that looped up into the rafters and somehow found its way to the right-hand edge of the table. Very cruel on George.

The one Karma win of the night came for Jason against Duncan. Jason came from behind to win the first, a pattern that repeated more dramatically in the second, with four game points squandred as Jason came back from 10:6 down to win 6 consecutive points and win the end, before going on to take the third with some comfort.

Adam against Dan was another good game, but Adam upped the pace at the end of each leg and swept home with some impressive forehand looping.

Sadly, this was Matt's last game for a while as he is off to pastures new. We will miss his indefatigable pursuit of shots he has no right to get a bat on, let alone return to the table.

Best Wishes

Duncan