Oakbrook 2 – 7 Brunswick C

Gavin B & Simon T | Tipue M A & Ibrar K | Jamie K & Glen T

Our final home game of the season, against Brunswick’s new C team.  Given their A team have won the league title 25 years out of the last 26, they may be a C team but they’re still pretty good, as proved by the scoreline.

First game was good for Oakbrook – Gavin and Simon overcoming a mid-game wobble in the first to take it 22-20, 21-12.  Tipue and Ibrar meanwhile made a consistent but insufficient 16-12, 16-21 in their first game against Calvin (formerly of Oakbrook, now playing at Brunswick) and his partner Jordan.  Jamie, kindly playing for the feathers team for the first time this year to fill a gap, was dropped in the deep end against probably Brunswick’s strongest pairing, and along with Glen who fortunately turned up to club night two minutes before he was due on court, to find he’d agreed to be playing in a match he’d forgotten about, struggled to a 4-21, 11-21 defeat.

The second round of games saw Tipue and Ibrar trying to add to Gavin and Simon’s victory; against that same pair, they took it to three topsy-turvey games, but lost momentum in the final game: 16-21, 21-14, 10-21 the result – I’d write in more about Tipue’s amazing defensive play and Ibrar’s deft variety of shots, but somehow I missed seeing any of their games, so you’ll just have to imagine that they played pretty well to get that close to a win.  Jamie and Glen were given a more realistic mission from Simon to get 21 overall in the two games, and this they managed, 11-21, 11-21, against Calvin and Jordan – their combined tight serves being key given the speed the two Brunswickers attack the shuttle – and Simon gave them a half-point for that although sadly it wasn’t allowed on the scorecard.  Gavin and Simon meanwhile started badly against the strong Brunswick pair of Matt (also formerly of Oakbrook) and his partner Paul.  Matt and Paul breezed through the first game, after which Gavin and Simon decided to ‘hit it in more’.  This seemed to have the desired effect, and although feeling all the way through that they were losing, somehow came away with a 10-21, 23-21, 21-16 victory.

The final round of games saw Jamie and Glen improve – as you might expect for a pair still getting used to playing together and still getting used to feather shuttles in general.  A result of 10-21, 20-22 not only saw them get another half-point from Simon, but gave a tantalisingly close finish and nearly took them into a decider.  Gavin and Simon, having previously won the game they felt they were losing all the way though, then lost one they were winning for the most part – unable to follow through on five game points in the first to lose it 24-26, they were made to look old and tired by Calvin and Jordan in the second game with Jordan’s smash from our poor lifts proving largely unreturnable – and 17-21 being the second game just as the clock ticked (somewhat past) ten – Gavin and Simon ruing their first game loss that would have given them a draw.

Overall not a bad performance against a team that play regularly with feather shuttles, and play regularly with a much higher standard of opposition than our Oakbrook team are used to.  On a particularly good day we might have snuck to a 4-5 loss instead of 2-7, but we have the opportunity to see if 9 April is a particularly good day when we play them again, at their place, for our final game of the season.  Thanks lots to Ibrar and Jamie for standing in for Aamir and Aaron – as always the support of the rest of the club is vital to us getting a feathers team out each match.  Also many thanks to all those who helped tidy up so quickly at the end, particularly Gavin who has developed an effective routine for tidying up the hoard of dead and half-dead feather shuttles into the correct tubes for me.