Excellent day at the RAF Open
We had an excellent day's fencing at the second RAF Open on Saturday, held at RAF Cosford near Wolverhampton in searingly hot temperatures. James Rutherford, Luke Rutherford and Roderick Howlett were fencing under the Fernwood flag, while Ed Howlett was fencing for ZFW and Ed Campion for the RAF. The men's foil competition had over 50 entries.
Ed H and James won all their first round of poules, Roderick and Ed C were in the same poule, with Roderick winning the battle between the two and also beating Jin Han Ngan of Lancaster University (whom Ed C also beat). Ed C was frustratingly close to winning his bout against Thai fencer Alexander Beck, of Fighting Fit in London, coached by former Polish senior squad fencer Michal Janda, but lost 4-5. Luke (in his first competition in a couple of years) in his poule came closest to a win when he was 3-0 up against Robin Priestley of Cocks Moor 2, but wasn't able to maintain the momentum.
In the second round of poules, James again won all his fights, but Ed fell to a shock 4-5 loss to Oliver Nash of Sutton Coldfield. Roderick again won 2 and lost 3, but was visibly flagging in the heat. Luke won 1 match in his second poule and Ed C came close in another 4-5 loss, this time to Ed Rysdale of Shrewsbury.
Going in the DEs, James was 3rd, Ed H 8th, Roderick 31st, Luke 44th and Ed C 46th. In L64, James and Ed H had byes. Luke fell to left hander Conor Dixon of Radcliffe Sword, while Ed C had a tough match against ex GB junior Tom Corlett of ZFW. Roderick had a winnable match against Dutch fencer Lucas van der Sande of KLM Fencing Club. He took a 5-2 lead but wasn't able to sustain it, the heat sapping his energy, and he lost 12-15. In L32, James had a comfortable 15-6 win over Daniel McKay of the RAF and Ed's was similarly comfortable -15-4 against Dave Bass of Abergele.
James had an unreasonably tough L16 draw against Tom Corlett, who had already knocked out Ed C. Tom took an early convincing lead, but James kept his head and continued to chase with great persistence, pulling off a fantastic 15-13 win. Meanwhile Ed calmly beat the very solid left hander Stephen Conroy of Nottingham Cavaliers 15-3.
L8 saw a divergence of fortunes for our excellent pair. James fenced Hong Kong fencer Vinson Wong of St Andrews University, who had won last week's GB Cup. Wong took an early lead and this time James was unable to chase it down, despite matching Wong in the second half of the match. The end score was 9-15. Meanwhile, Ed was fencing Ireland's Chris Lennon of Salle Boston in London. Lennon was not only top seed after the poules, but also 15-14 victor against Ed in the semi final of the Merseyside Open in February. There was a score to be settled against this difficult and smart fencer. The points racked up pretty much equally.At 10-10, Ed notched up another gear, fencing with remarkable confidence - including an excellent exchange on his back line to get a single on target light - to finish off with a 15-10 win.
The semi-final, against Hugo Di Francesco of Academy in London, was a slightly frustrating one. Ed had powered away to a 6-0 lead when Di Francesco collapsed to the ground with what appeared to be cramp in one, or possibly both, legs. Following the prescribed maximum 5 minute medical break, Di Francesco abandoned, cutting off what was looking like being a very comprehensive victory for Ed.
The final saw Ed pitted against Vinson Wong. Another interesting one, given he had knocked James out in L8 and also had beaten Roderick in L32 at the Leicester Open. Ed had never fenced him before and went down 0-3 while he tested the water. Ed pulled the score back to 3-3 and it was broadly even till Ed was 8-7. At that stage he had gauged the correct distance and how to beat Wong's defence. Wave after wave of carefully built up attacks followed till Ed was 14-7 up, not even being deterred by being clouted in the mask by Wong's guard at 11-7. Wong got a further point but Ed finished the match immediately after the break to complete a stylish 15-8 win.
Ed gets to keep the Spitfire Cup for the next 12 months - and was particularly proud to win the RAF Open as one grandfather had been in the RAF medical corps in WW2, while the other designed aeroplanes for De Havilland and later British Aerospace.
James finished in 6th place, Roderick in 34th, Luke in 44th and Ed C in 46th.
