Shropshire Star

Tom Roden: Freakish results needed

Reigning champions Sir John Bayley believe they will require more ‘freakish’ results to reel in new table-toppers Castlefields.

Published

The Bayley Boys secured a fine 11-3 victory at Chester Road to climb to third in the Salop Leisure Shropshire Premier League.

The result far exceeded the expectations of skipper Tom Roden, who warned it would take a number of similar outstanding scores to topple favourites Castlefields.

“It was brilliant,” said Roden. “We weren’t expecting it and hadn’t won there in a few years. We’d have taken five or six points on a good night.”

The defeat left Chester Road bottom, and Roden added: “I can’t understand that. Maybe they’re playing teams at the wrong time. It was a wet green, and any changes to the green favour the away team – that helped us.

“After our 14-0 loss at Burway (April 28) we’re playing catch-up. There’s a long way for us to go to catch Castlefields and it would take a freakish set of results for us. We can’t play like last Friday every week. I think Castlefields are big favourites.”

Roden hailed Paul Reeves’ 21-7 win over Dave Rogers, while Robert Burroughs, Norman Harvey, Roden and Steve Burroughs won to 19, 20, 19 and 19, respectively.

Castlefields scored an impressive 12-2 success over rivals St Georges to take over top spot.

Glyn Herbert (21-7 against Peter Grimston) recorded their best result.

Hanmer’s plight at the bottom was aided by a handsome 12-2 home success over Burway, while Newport picked up an impressive seven points at previous leaders Meole Brace.

Newport had seven of the 12 winners but four of those were 21-20 successes as the hosts took the aggregate.

Doug Edwards had Meole Brace’s best result a 21-9 win over Mick Jones that proved crucial.