Sunday 22 September 2013

Bali 8: Only six to go

The round robin has two more days to go.

In the Women's series England had an excellent day winning all three matches' two of them against almost certain qualifiers. There is a modes carry forward from these matches to the knock out stages so if, for example, we play the Netherlands we will start 8.67 imps up.

In our first match against USA2 Sally & Nicola made a grand slam missed at the other table and in the second match Nevena will have known it was her birthday when she & Heather bid a grand on an early board followed immediately by a 1400 penalty when the Dutch saved over a slam that was only making if you dropped a stiff king offside. A solid win against Australia in the final match has left us 4th and in good shape to qualify.

In the open series there were some partnership changes and we saw Forrester and Robson in action for the first time in years. Two good wins brought us into a qualifying position but a loss to the Netherlands means we are 9th with two days to go and a tough run in. It may favour us that we have other countries in contention to play starting with China.

One of the jobs of a coach is to produce some notes on the peculiarities of the opposition. David Burn adds a note about the country concerned so the players can demonstrate extra knowledge. For example "If you do not know where Indonesia is you are currently lost. The country was under Dutch colonial rule for about 350 years during which it was a more or less peaceful place where not much happened. Upon becoming independent it was occupied by the Japanese who conducted regular massacres then engaged in civil wars which killed another million people. In an attempt to shake off the Dutch imperialist oppression it was decided to drive on the left but this decree reached only half the people with the result that everyone now drives in the middle". 

No comments:

Post a Comment