Mission accomplished for St Georges against Castlefields
It only succeeded in delaying the inevitable, but it was mission very much accomplished for St Georges against Furrows Shropshire Premier League champions elect Castlefields.
It only succeeded in delaying the inevitable, but it was mission very much accomplished for St Georges against Furrows Shropshire Premier League champions elect Castlefields.
Denying the 'old enemy' the chance to win a third successive title on St Georges' home patch formed the basis of the pre-match team talk given by the Dragons' joint captains Ian Gaut and Tony Rhodes.
And the target was achieved with a 10-4 victory for the hosts on Friday night, leaving Keith Walton's side still requiring three points from their final match at home to Bylet to make mathematically certain.
"Friday was a good night for us and it was probably the best we have played for a while," said a delighted Gaut.
"Castlefields are going to win the league but we wanted to make sure it didn't happen in this game."
Scott Harries and Alan Palin were both single figure victors for St Georges against Clay Flattley and Paul Williams respectively.
And it could have been even better for the County Cup champions with half of Castlefields' return coming from 21-19 victories for Glyn Herbert over Glyn Picknell and Craig Barker against Michael Wainwright.
But the victory now leaves St Georges well placed to pip Chester Road, who scored a fine win at Ifton last week, for the runners-up spot.
Nine points separate the two teams but St Georges do have a game in hand on Friday against a Bylet side who look certainties for the relegation play-off.
Drubbed
They suffered a 14-0 whitewash at Wem USC and trail Bowring by nine points with two games to go —against St Georges and Castlefields!
All but one Bylet player battled to double figures at Wem, where the home win went some way to ending reports of unrest in the camp.
Nearly as convincing were soaring Newport as they drubbed Sir John Bayley 12-2, Daniel Hand one of their three 21-17 wins against visiting No 1 Spencer Clarke.
County Cup finalists Ford made a great start to their match at Childs Ercall, skipper Kevin Jones, the impressive Andy Marshall and Julian Cooke all winning to put them 3-1 ahead.
Dave Ellis and Pete Griffiths added to that tally in the middle as the score went to 5-3 to the visitors.
But Roy Langford ran out from 12-8 down for Ercall and Nick Newey and DaveBrown both scored 21-11 wins to pull the home side through by 22 shots in a game of six winners each.
By JAMES GARRISON
