Gameweek 26 Review

Newport finish second, Dragons snatch fourth, Bylet get best ever season

Newport finished second in the Salop Leisure Shropshire Premier Bowling League after beating Wem USC 11-3 in Gameweek 26. Tom Langford was their best winner 5, with Colin Smith scoring a fine 18 win over Pete Farmer to be Wem’s best winner, who will be delighted with their 7th place finish. Sir John Bayley had to settle for 3rd place, despite beating Chester Road by the same score. Elliot McGuinness was best winner 3, while Martin Lloyd won 8 to be best for the Road, who finished 11th. St Georges snatched 4th place in a great second half to the season after winning at Ifton 13-3. John Cooke was their best winner 10, with Dicky Jones best winner for the home side 14, who dropped down to 12th place in the table. Joint skipper Ian Gaut said “Friday was a superb performance with the result never in doubt once Pete Grimston scrambled a 21-20 win in the first four when so many had gone against him this season. Nine winners away from home is a great effort and epitomised our second half form. Too many great performances to mention.” Hanwood had to settle for 5th, the same place as last season, after they beat Meole Brace 9-5. Steve France was their best winner 9, with Tim Jordan and Martin Middleton best for Meole 14, who, despite the good result, finished in 13th place. Wrockwardine Wood finished 6th, two places up on last season, despite getting a good 5 winners at champions Castlefields. Andrew Judson was best winner at home again with his 6 card, while Dale Downes was best for the visitors 10.

Bylet earned their best ever season in the league, finishing in 8th place with 171 points, after beating Burway 9-5. Proud captain Scott Harries said “what can I say, we rounded off a brilliant season with another comfortable home win. To drop 12 chalks over 5 losers was the only downside, 3 18s, 1 19 and a 20 loss so as daft as it sounds it could’ve been a full house but credit to the Burway lads for their battling. With the none stop rain and green underwater the game was in doubt but the sun finally came out in the afternoon and the green ran well considering but was extremely slippy. On the season as a whole I couldn’t be prouder of my lads. Breaking our highest ever finish in the league coming 8th, breaking our highest ever points tally and winning 11 out of 13 games at home which is another record for us just shows how far we’ve come. A bit of the gloss came off our season after narrowly losing in the Harris Cup Final Saturday as that would’ve been the icing on an already big cake but once again I’m extremely proud of our efforts and of the results we put in this season, it was an honour to captain this fantastic bunch of lads for the very first time. We will be pushing for higher next season and can only go from strength to strength so I’m looking forward to our next challenge.” Best winners were Rich Morris and Matt Ealey 9, with Wayne Rogers, Duncan Pressley and Ben Allen best for the Ludlow side 18, who finish 10th. Bowring somehow managed to finish in 9th place after winning at Hanmer 11-5. Skipper Rich Lawson commented on “a very pleasing way to end the season with an away win. It didn’t look like that after the first four as they played it very well with only Jamie Fletcher managing to win 20 and we were down by 22. In the middle though we rallied with Ash Gregory winning 10 and Martin Gaut impressive winning 9 (to be best winner) and Ayd Smith coming from 11-3 behind to win 18. At the back Jamie King dug in to win 20, Dave Lloyd played very well to win 14 and Roy Bradburn saw us over the line winning 19, so a positive note to end the season on. Hammer are a good set of lads and I wish them all the best in the play off ” Hanmer’s best winner was Lee Peate 10, who now wait anxiously to see if they face a playoff.