Talbot's House

After a long winter break, the Talbot's fives players were ready and rearing to go upon their return to school. Karan is this year's fives first team captain and was keen to select fives players he knows well, with two Talbot's boys selected alongside him in the Fives 1st IV, Dom and Michael. Dom has played before for the fives team, however Michael was making his debut for the outfit. After arriving early to get some practice in, the boys were met with closed doors to the courts, which they presumed meant that the courts were locked. However, Mr Croker had in fact left the doors open, and to the boys horror, after twenty minutes of waiting, the boys discovered this for themselves. Nonetheless, the boys cracked on with some practice, until the opposition arrived. The RFA are a gentlemen's side, therefore the boys certainly were superior in terms of athleticism, however the gentlemen's experience and guile proved too much for Michael and Karan in the singles, however our resident power-lifter, Dom, made short work of his opponent, with some brute strength coupled with moments of creative brilliance dismantling his opponents spirited resistance. After the conclusion of the singles matches, with the RFA holding a slight advantage, the match moved on to the doubles. Karan and Michael made up a pair, with Dom making a pair with Yuri Lelikov of Redburn House. Karan and Michael's matches began brightly, with a win against their opposite numbers. However, despite some outrageous shots from Karan and Michael's best efforts to cover Karan, the pair lost their remaining matches. Yuri and Dom, although being far superior in terms of strength than their opposition, could not convert this into points and eventually succumbed to some close defeats. Eventually, the RFA won by about 40 points, a respectable result and one that was a fair representation of the fixture. The boys certainly saw some positives in their matches, however, and will look to improve for their upcoming fixtures.