Brunel's polished climbing wall might be hated by the majority of SIBL competitors but the venue as a whole is nearing ideal in every other way. It's warm and has plenty of space for kit and spectators. Matt Claydon can barricade himself behind a wall of indestructible tables to defend the honour of the sacred scores. He needed that haven of space and quiet at this round; he was responsible for working out the qualifiers for the SIBL Cup to take place on 7th and 8th February.

It was pleasing to see everything more organised and smooth-running for this round. Rob was quite serious all day and even seemed to be in charge at one point.

At Brunel, I am used to getting back depressing reports of impossible roof problems and tortuous traverses. This year was no exception. Tom Gore was convinced that this round would be his lowest scoring and I am sure I heard Joel Charley call Zippy, the route-setter, an "evil man".

Joel's dad had driven the Charleybus over to make up the numbers. It isn't often that we fit into two vehicles but it happened this time because Dan Shepperson was still injured and David Box had succumbed to pressure from his football coach (yes, I said football).

There were some familiar climbs at this round. Several old hands commented on number 18 which seemed to take an identical line to its counterpart last year. This was, of course, vigorously denied by Zippy.

Our results were somewhat different to previous rounds in this league.
The Male Open category was, again, hotly contested with Trevor Nagler, Tom Arnold and, to our impressed dismay, Tom Clowney all finishing some way ahead of Tom Gore.

Our climbers again looked pretty strong in the Junior Male category with six in the top ten. Most impressive was Tony Musselbrook's second place. He's up there battling it out with Tyler. Callum Harris finished in his highest ever position; a well-deserved third.
Our other junior climbers are performing consistently this year with minor fluctuations perhaps dropping their overall performance from the top five or six.

Matt Cousins had a bad day; a very bad day. He still finished in eighth place but I (and most of the other occupants of the Brunel sports hall) know that he lost his rag at least once too often.
On the other hand Will Cousins got stuck into the head-to-head and pulled off an impressively fast first place.

I am very pleased to say that all but one of our climbers will be competing in the SIBL Cup next weekend. The odd one out is a not-too-disappointed Chris Powell who generously gave his fluked wildcard entry to Joe Cook.

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