Friday, October 5, 2007

Carnival in Rio

Well I never like playing the likes of Chagas and Villa Boas as they have the ability to rip off your limbs one by one. So it was with some minor reservations that we arrived at the venue. I was asked to commentate in the VG theatre for the Germany/USA2. The beauty is that you can see the scores from all matches at the same time.

Things kicked off nicely with our jumping out to a 30-1 after 5 boards. A happy captain I must say. During the match it became evident that boards 10 and 11 had been fouled and so they were replayed. At one table the opponents bid and made a grand slam on a finesse - but we picked up 8 on the other board so no complaints.

24-6 and running 4th made the team jubilant. Of course it is important to temper this with the humility that we are yet to play Italy, Argentina and other contenders. The team had lunch in our team room and were, I must say the mood was excellent without being over the top.

I was very uncertain as to how we should line up for the next match but went with my strategy of playing winners so we line up with Warren/Pauline and Murray/Andrew. After that Murray/Andrew and Bruce/Jedi will line up against Trinidad and Tobago. The art against this team is not to be too aggressive and simply let them find their own trouble if this is possible. Going in contemptuously against teams running last is a shocking approach. After all they have scored 20 against Brazil and another 21 and 16. Maintaining focus will be critical to achieving what we hope for.

More later
best
David

1 comment:

Unknown said...

David I don't know what you are giving them but please bring some back for me.
Ian McCance