{"id":5880,"date":"2016-04-07T23:59:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T23:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/?p=5880"},"modified":"2016-04-07T23:59:43","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T23:59:43","slug":"week-2-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/?p=5880","title":{"rendered":"Week 2 Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last season’s top two start campaign with tricky ties, Ifton face trip to Hadley<\/strong><\/p>\n

The top two from last season finally start their campaign this week in the Flowfit Shropshire Premier Bowling League but face two tricky ties. Champions Newport go to a Hanwood side reeling from last week’s whitewash at Ifton, but joint captain Mark Shore knows that this will be a different game. “Last week was a real wake up call and our team now know the level expected of us. Ifton are real championship material and will provide a real test for anyone visiting there. So on from that game we turn to play the actual champions in the first home game of the season. Newport arrive at the Cock tomorrow and their new look line up have yet to be tested. Many will be looking at this game to see if Newport are much weaker than in previous seasons. We will not however and will give the champions the respect they deserve and try to play at our best to pull off a the win to kick start our season. Thanks to Dave Burton and other dedicated members of the club the green is yet again in superb condition and we hope this will be the deciding factor in a good all round team performance.” Newport have a new look team with losing 5 players over the Winter, but with the return of Chris Grocott full time and Mid-Shropshire Averages Winner John Roberts Jnr will help ease those losses. They also have a new captain in Mark Selley too, and he will be looking for a good start to the season and show Newport will still be a force to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n

Runners-up from the last four seasons Meole Brace have changed too, not in terms of players but their green. They will be hoping for a good start on the green against Sir John Bayley, a team who on the other green had an excellent record. But home captain Mark Thomas is looking forward to welcoming them. “Our season starts this Friday with much fancied Bayley coming to Meole. A real test for us on our other green, we are hoping to get off to a good start with Dave Redge making his debut.” The Bayley opened their account last week with a 11-3 home win over Bylet and they head to Meole with the same side. Captain Spencer Clarke says “we will be looking to hopefully build on the solid start we have made last week.\u00a0As for predicting the outcome of the game, it\u2019s a tricky one. In recent years, we generally have a decent away record and our lads both enjoy going to Meole and play the green well but (and it is a big but!) this was on the other green so I have no idea how tomorrow will pan out. We will obviously want to grab as many points as possible but Meole have been SPBL runners up the past 4 years and are a very talented side so it could prove to be a shrewd move by them\u00a0to switch greens in their quest to go one better and win the league. It promises to be an intriguing encounter and fingers crossed my lads can earn a few points!”<\/p>\n

League leaders Ifton enjoyed a perfect start last week but this week are away to shock away winners from last week Hadley USC. Ifton have a good record at the Huskies and won there 10-4 last season when having the best away record in the league. They will be looking for a good result to build on last week but so will Hadley after their terrific win at Wem USC. The other away winners St Georges take on Burway, a team that they beat 13-1 at home last season. Burway however were up at St Georges in the Harris Cup on Wednesday, although only 6 players, so will be hoping that this will help them gain a few more winners than last season. But St Georges know they have to built on their fine win at Chester Road. Chester Road will be looking to bounce back as they travel to Wrockwardine Wood, a green where they have a good record. Chester Road have only failed to score less than 4 once in the history of the league so will be hoping this stays true. Wrockwardine were ruing not getting any more winners in the back four last week at Burway so will be looking to put this right and get a good home start to the season after only losing on there once last season.<\/p>\n

Castlefields\u00a0will be looking for a good home win over Wem USC to kick start their season after last night’s 4 winners at the Bowring. Wem have scored 4 there in three of the last four seasons and will be hoping to bounce back after last week’s shock home defeat against Hadley USC. Bowring, having enjoyed a good start last night, will be going to Bylet looking for a good result despite Bylet strengthening. They will be wary off the threat Bylet pose with their new signings, but they have won three out of the last four visits to Bridgnorth so it could be a close game. However Bylet did win the last 5 home games of last season, including the great 12-2 win last game of last season against Hadley USC to keep them up, so will be confident of keeping that run going as home form will be crucial to their season.<\/p>\n

Week 2 Fixtures:<\/p>\n

Bylet v Bowring<\/p>\n

Castlefields v Wem USC<\/p>\n

Hadley USC v Ifton<\/p>\n

Hanwood v Newport<\/p>\n

Meole Brace v Sir John Bayley<\/p>\n

St Georges v Burway<\/p>\n

Wrockwardine Wood v Chester Road<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last season’s top two start campaign with tricky ties, Ifton face trip to Hadley The top two from last season finally start their campaign this week in the Flowfit Shropshire Premier Bowling League but face two tricky ties. Champions Newport go to a Hanwood side reeling from last week’s whitewash at Ifton, but joint captain …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[135,113,38],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5VaGi-1wQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5888,"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5880\/revisions\/5888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thespbl.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}