RND LogoRND’s “old men” claimed a 3-2 victory in the second leg of their Devon Veterans’ Emmerton Court Trophy game against Libbaton -- but it wasn’t enough.

Their 4-1 defeat in the away leg proved to be too much of a hurdle to overcome despite this impressive effort.
Captain Simon Hopkins was naturally disappointed but remained upbeat: “It was a very close-run thing and a very exciting, hard-fought battle,” he said.

“But the damage was done in the away match. It was a good performance all round but not good enough.”
Gary Fisher and Clifford Brown set the pace with an excellent 3&2 win before Geoff Sykes and Pat McGuckin went one better with 4&2 victory.

A defeat for Jeremy Horn and Richard Stubbs, who lost 2&1, was countered by Tony Allin and George Fenton who finished 2up.
But David Miller and Robert Fowler lost 4&3 and Libbaton finished with an overall winning score of 6-4.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Captain Simon was pleased at least that his gifts of bananas, cereal bars and water bottles to the players were appreciated and consumed by all.

“All the gifts were used,” he said with a grin, “but sadly to no avail. But we’re still in good spirits!”

After all there is always next year!

Thanks to the reserves Kevin Wickham and Phil Hall