Fran Babbe enjoyed a memorable debut in the RSL at the weekend. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0664978)
GUERNSEY have won back the RSL Shield in convincing style.
The hosts won the second-team inter-insular 24-6 at the Rohais Halls, a superb turnaround from last year’s 19-11 defeat.
Included was a reversal of the 8-1 loss 12 months ago in the men’s doubles section, the only Sarnian defeat being for debutant pairing Danny Penney and Nick Abbott. Both played brilliantly all day, but narrowly lost their first match in three sets to Jersey’s top pairing of Steve McGrath and team captain Steve Rentsch.
The Sarnian men’s team was strengthened by the return of Glenn MacFarlane and Kevin Le Moigne, both back from extended absence due to injury, and the women’s with Charlotte Koller, recently returned from university, and Rachel Legg.
This added strength in depth could not be matched this year by the visitors. MacFarlane partnered Karl Abbotts and they proved too strong for the Caesareans.
Le Moigne paired up with James Lawrence and both pairs won all three of their rubbers.
In the women’s doubles, Guernsey were also victors 6-3.
This was a tremendously hard-fought section with seven of the matches going to a third set. Decisively, five of these were won by the home side.
The match of the section was undoubtedly the final rubber in which Jane Torode and another debutante, Fran Babbe, represented Guernsey.
All three games went beyond 20-all as they beat Annabel Flambard and Marilisa Garnier 24-26, 22-20, 23-21.
The top pair of Koller and Legg remained unbeaten but were stretched to three-set wins in two of their matches.
Meanwhile the Renee Stuart/Anika Johnson pairing had three three-set matches and were victorious twice.
Leading 14-4 with the final 12 mixed doubles matches to play, overall victory was only a matter of time.
It was assured in the first round of mixed matches.
Fittingly, it was debutants Penney and Babbe who took match 15 in class C, and the winning 16th was wrapped up by MacFarlane and Legg beating Tim Noel and Cara McGinnigle 21-14, 21-17 in class A.
At the conclusion of the mixed doubles, Guernsey won both class A and C 4-0 with class B shared two-all.
The best individual results were from MacFarlane, who did not drop a game all day.
But the overall best performance was the maturity and style of performance of the debutant lads Penney and 16-year-old Abbott.
They really stepped up for the occasion and were playing as hard at the end of the day as at the beginning, as shown by the 4-0 win in the class C mixed doubles with their respective partners Babbe and Torode.
In accepting the trophy back from Jersey, team skipper Kevin Le Moigne was delighted with the all around excellent performance and positive play by the newer younger players who had been selected.RSL Shield: Convincing victory for Guernsey
Article posted on 6th November, 2008 - 2.29pm
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