Understrength Royal dig deep to retain the spoils

With the match having been rearranged from earlier in the season, the host club were without both of their Channel Islands Championships finalists Jeremy Nicolle and Mick Marley as well as a couple of other first-team regulars who had entered the LGM Men’s Open.

However, first-team captain Tom Le Huray still managed to field a side good enough to edge their neighbours L’Ancresse by a point in the foursomes-and-singles scratch match-play format.

Crucially, the Royal had opened up that lead in the foursomes session.

There was no surprise that the two Dannys – Blondel and Bisson – combined to claim a full point in the first match out, but Le Huray combined well with 14-year-old Rory McKenna to earn a half against another established L’Ancresse pairing in Jamie Blondel and Steve Mahy.

Nigel Vaudin and Dave Robinson joined forces to win the first point of the day for the RGGC with a comfortable victory over Sam Le Huray and Tom Pattimore while in the anchor match Wayne Harwood and Neil Tanguy registered an important victory over Sean Mills and Wayne Moore.

That left L’Ancresse needing five wins from the afternoon singles to wrest the shield off the holders and they loaded the top of the order in an attempt to get more points on the board quickly.

On the whole, it worked, with three of the first four matches going their way.

Danny Blondel completed a perfect day for himself with a narrow victory over his good mate Le Huray while Jamie Blondel eventually saw off the challenge of Harwood and Mahy was too strong for Robinson.

Before any of those matches had finished, Sam Le Huray had already added to the L’Ancresse points tally with a comprehensive win over young McKenna.

However, they could not find the other point they required from the other four rubbers.

Vaudin doubled his personal points tally for the day with victory over Bisson, sealed with a birdie on the 15th where his three-wood approach finished within 8ft of the cup, and Thompson won by the same 4 & 3 scoreline against Pattimore.

That left L’Ancresse pinning their hopes on either Sean Mills or Moore.

It was the former Royal man Mills who came closest as he went all the way to the final green, but his opponent Tanguy came up with a couple of outstanding shots at crucial times.

Firstly, from through the back of the 17th green, he played a marvellous chip to within a couple of feet to save his par and then, with Mills having hit his tee shot on the last to 12ft, Tanguy took dead aim and knocked his even closer.

When Mills missed his birdie attempt, he immediately offered the congratulatory handshake.

Moments later, a par at the 16th was enough for Roland Mills to see off Moore and seal victory.