Home Internationals 2008

Scotland travelled to Cardiff, for this years Home Internationals, with a very young Under 13 team and a reasonably experienced Under 15 squad. Accompanying the teams were National Squad Coaches Mark Beaumont and Gerry Towler. Grampian was represented by Rosie Allan & Chris Leiper, in the Under 15 team.

The Scots first match could not have been any harder, coming up against the much fancied Welsh, on their home courts. Rosie was up against Hannah Williams who had restricted her to a few points at the Welsh junior open a few weeks earlier. Rosie put in a great performance and was far closer on this occasion, but still went down 9/4 – 9/6 – 9/3. Rosie playing at No1 girl, was to win both of her next two matches however the defeat of the Irish No1 Rachael Power 9/1-9/2-9/0 was undoubtedly one of her best performances for months.

Chris had the best comeback of the tournament in his match against Gloucestershires Matt Boal. Trailing 2/0 in games and 8/4 in the third, Chris was able to turn the match on it’s head and come out victorious. This was achieved despite only having a plaster removed from his broken hand on the Monday before travelling.  Chris never fails to attract long matches and he was to go down 3/2 in his first match against Wales. In typical fashion he managed to keep everyone late for the presentation by taking the last match of the tournament to the wire, being edged out 10/9 in the fifth by Irelands Connor O’Shea.

The squad achieved a tremendous collective total of 12 consecutive victories on the Saturday defeating both Gloucester and Ireland 5/0 with both of the reserves winning their respective matches. The sequence unfortunately came to an end when Chris in unlucky match number 13 went down 10/9 in the fifth to his Irish opponent, despite a valiant effort.

All in all this was an excellent campaign, with the Scots being runners up, narrowly beaten by the Welsh in the first tie.