Romeril inspires memorable result

SCOTT ROMERIL produced the performance of his young life to turn the tide Guernsey's way in the annual inter-insular men's clash for the Green Trophy. All weekend at the Guernsey Table Tennis Centre nobody had threatened to get near Marcin Jurkiewicz, the new Jersey and CI champion, but the 17-year-old stunned both Jurkiewicz and the Caesarean camp with an 11-6, 11-8, 13-11 victory to ensure Guernsey could not lose the match.

Phil Ogier then went on to defeat Eugene Ellis in the final match to wrap up a 6-4 win for the home team.

'Scott was out of this world,' said GTTA president Derek Webb, while Green team coach Phil Hunkin said it 'was amazing to see'.

'He really was firing on all cylinders. He was very aggressive and didn't make any mistakes.

'It was a helluva result,' said a delighted coach who had witnessed Jurkiewicz keep Jersey in the match with two straight-sets singles wins and pick up a further point by partnering Ellis to a thrilling five-set doubles win over Ogier and Romeril.

Romeril and Jurkiewicz clashed in match number eight with Guernsey 4-3 up.

'It was undoubtedly the key game,' said Hunkin, who said the match as a whole was the best inter-insular he had ever witnessed.

The 'Green' success topped off a fantastic weekend for the Sarnian camp.

Having dominated the CI finals on Friday evening they won the vast majority of the team clashes to take the overall trophy by a huge margin, 80 to 30.

The women's match for the Margaret Trophy saw Guernsey romp to a 10-0 scoreline with Kay Chivers, Dawn Morgan and 11-year-old debutante Alice Loveridge, all defeating the newly-crowned CI champion from Jersey, Kay Lefebvre.

Loveridge dropped just one set in her three singles, thrashing Lefebvre 11-6, 11-3, 11-8.

'The ladies' result was a pretty good performance,' said a modest Hunkin.

'It was only in the vets events where we struggled a bit, which we always do.

'Our under-13s also lost but we played a B team in that because we put our under-13s in the under-15s.'