AFTER an excellent first half to the season, Tavistock squash team are currently lying second in division 4 South West.

The team recently played in the third round of the Plate Competition and met the team lying second in division one, South West. This was due to Devon and Exeter first team losing to Newton Abbot first team in the first round. Devon and Exeter are one of the best teams in the county.

Tavistock had no chance of proceeding further in the competition, and were out to enjoy themselves. Playing at number 4 for Devon and Exeter, was Steve Dickson,who used to play number 1 for Tavistock. He learned how to play squash at Tavistock and, in his youth, played all the Tavistock team, including beating Colin Grice convincingly.

The match opened with Tavistock's number 1, Steve Tripp against Devon and Exeter's number 1. Steve is a fine squash player, with an excellent variety of shots and the ability to keep an opponent on the run. This season he has won most of his matches, but against a hard hitter,with a superior range of shots, he struggled and lost 3-0.

Next up, Tavistock team's Colin Grice started strongly, but could not match the fitness, or strength of Devon and Exeter's number 2, and went down 3-0.

At number 3, Tim Wallis struggled valiantly, using his tight drop shots and clever boasts, but failed to upset his opponent. Tim went down 3-0, and all who saw the match observed that Tim was out of breath and appeared to have been running quite hard.

It was hoped that Tavistock's captain, Stuart Cox, playing at number 4, would lead from the front and put in a captain's innings, as an example to the rest of the team.

He was playing against Steve Dickson, who was out to show how much he had improved since playing for Tavistock. Steve used a range of shots to run Stuart round the court and gave him all sorts of problems.

Stuart was stretched to the utmost limits of his playing ability, yet Steve appeared completely untroubled and emerged an easy winner, 3-0.

At number 5, Peter Walshe had been roped in as a replacement and came up against a fast and accurate opponent.

Using his reverse angle shots, with plenty of low boasts and drop shots, Pete managed to win the first game 9-7.

Devon and Exeter's Tony then started to raise his game and started to pull ahead. Tony won the second and third games. Peter rallied hard in the fourth to take the score to 8-8, but Tony's clever shots saw him through and he won the game 3-1.

Pete Walshe was the only member of the team to win a game, and as Colin Grice memorably said: 'It's the best Peter has played all season!'

So, Tavistock were given a lesson in playing squash by one of the top teams in Devon. Even though it was a crushing defeat and Tavistock are out of the Plate Competition, the match was great fun, and Pete Walshe's winning one game at least avoided Tavistock's complete whitewash!