Matthew Stubbington played his part in a tough contest for Guernsey’s junior boys. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0705615)

GUERNSEY players produced some fighting displays at the 52nd European Youth Championships in Prague.

In the team event, the junior boys of Oliver and Adam Langlois and Matthew Stubbington were drawn against strong opposition from Italy, Israel, Finland, losing those matches 3-0, and Malta, who they beat 3-2 after being 2-0 down.

Stubbington went on to the play the third and crucial game to keep them in the match and won comfortably 3-0 to be followed by the same performance by the Langlois brothers with Adam going on to win the third and final match for the Sarnians in the fifth.

The boys then went on play in another tough group of four, including Bosnia, Ukraine and Kosovo.

They lost to both Bosnia and Ukraine 3-1 but then beat Kosovo 3-2, again with Adam Langlois winning the fifth rubber, 11-3 in the fourth, to keep them away from the bottom position.

Guernsey then met Malta once more, but unfortunately the match did not go their way, losing 3-2 with Oliver Langlois and Stubbington picking up a single win each.

The final match was for position 39/40 against a strong Azerbaijan team who had beaten Guernsey 3-0 in previous years.

This time Guernsey put in a better performance, but lost by the odd rubber in five to finish 40th.