Week 10 Report

Report by Olly Nunn

The recap of week ten starts at the Riverside, where the hosts were up against the Woodbourne Mouses. In the first game, the Warriors’ Ian Webster got off to a good start, taking the first two legs, and while the Mouses’ Jordan Caley took one back in the third, Webster was able to finish things off in the fourth to win 3-1. The Mouses responded, though, taking the next three games, with comfortable 3-0 wins for Glynn Harris against Colin Johnson and John Cartledge against Angie Brittle and a closer 3-2 win for Tom Wright versus Barry Brittle. The fifth singles was between the two captains, James Thomas and Paul Brittle. Tank started well, going 1-0 up, but Brittle then reeled off two legs to take the lead. Taking the fourth leg, Tank forced a decider, but it would be Brittle who won out 3-2. Although denied an early win, the Mouses were able to clean up in the pairs, winning the two doubles games 2-0 and 2-1 to end the night 5-2.

Elsewhere, Foxhill and District As were at home versus the Uni Arms Understudies. The match between the Understudies’ Tom Graham and Foxhill’s Morgan Mullins was decided in the fifth leg, as Graham held his nerve to win 3-2 and put the visitors ahead. But the hosts rebounded, with Dale Blackwell and Ben Cooper (who hit a 180) both winning 3-0, against Nathan Okeeffe and Damien Reed. Patrick Hopkins then gave the Understudies’ their own straight-legs victory as he beat Jack Walker. In the final singles, Jack Quinn got an important 3-1 win for the visitors versus Martin Bridge, hitting a 180 and a 19 dart leg along the way. Much like last week, a win for Foxhill in the first pairs, with Cooper and Karl Howden beating Jack Stoddard and Elliot Hopkins 2-0, meant that the tie would come down to the last game. This Thursday, however, it was the Understudies who came out on top, with Quinn and Patrick Hopkins’ 2-0 win against Blackwell and Mullins giving them their second win of the season. “It was a team performance, everyone put in a shift”, was what Captain Stoddard had to say of the Understudies’ efforts.

In the tie between Thorncliffe’s Finest and the Swallownest Miners, it was the Miners who started with a win. Tim Whiting and Jack Pink shared the first two legs between them, but from there Whiting kicked on to win 3-1. Oliver Parfrement put the Thorns back on level terms as he beat Matt Spank in the second game 3-0, only for the Miners to edge ahead again as Tom Tingle saw off Logan Higgins 3-1. Dan Ashton then gave the Thorns their second straight-legs win of the night versus Kev Allison, meaning the fifth game would be key in deciding who would go into the pairs with an advantage. And it would prove to be a close encounter, as the Thorns’ Dylan Farmer and the Miners’ Kev Hatfield traded legs until they reached the decider. Ultimately, it was Hatfield who won out to clinch a 3-2 for the Miners. The Swallownest side now needed only one more win for the overall, but the Thorns ensured it would come down to the final match as Ashton and Higgins beat Whiting and Spank 2-0 in the first pairs. In the second pairs, Hatfield and Tingle got the Miners over the line, with a 2-0 win over Parfrement and Farmer to bring the final score to 4-3 to Swallownest.

At the Uni Arms, the Academicals faced off against Station Railwaymen. Up first was Geoff Higgs for Station and Olly Nunn for the Accy D’s, and although Nunn took the first leg, Higgs then reeled off three on the bounce (with 19 and 20 darters) to win 3-1. Second was Pete Roebuck for Station against Jack Newton for the Accy D’s. Roebuck broke throw to take the first, but Newton responded, breaking back with a 118 checkout. From there, however, Roebuck pushed on to win 3-1, with an 18 darter in the final leg. The Accy D’s got a win on the board in the third game, as Luke Davies beat Lee MacDonald 3-0, although in the fourth game Gav Pilling produced a win by the same margin against Tom Jepson to put the Railwaymen 3-1 up. The final singles game was the anticipated rematch between the Accy D’s Adam Warner and Station’s Ryan Goffin. Warner began with a 17 darter before taking the next leg to go 2-0 up. Goffin won the third, before Warner produced a 16 darter to seal the match 3-1. In the first doubles, the Accy D’s pairing of Warner and Jack Lewis took the first leg and had a match dart, but Station’s Goffin and Higgs came back to win 2-1 and guarantee an overall win for the Railwaymen. And the visitors signed off with a 2-0 win in the last pairs, with Pilling and Roebuck beating Lewis Forrest and Joe Hopkins, making the final score 5-2 to Station.

Our recap ends at the Woodbourne, where Vintage were against the Raging Bull. Having won 7-0 last week, the visitors started where they left off, as Liam Kent beat Chris Keane 3-0 and Mark Thomson, who had a successful night with a 19 darter and two 180s, secured a 3-1 win in the second game. Vintage’s Dave Cliffe won the first two legs in the third game, but Raging Bull’s Adam Chadwick fought back, taking three on the spin to win 3-2. This meant Bri Jones could guarantee the win for the Raging Bull in his game against Russ Simons, and he did just that, with 18 and 16 darters on the way to a 3-0 victory. The fifth singles was between Rich Brown for Vintage and Matty Pierce for the Raging Bull. Brown won the first two legs, only for Pierce to take the third. Yet Brown fired in a 20 dart leg to end the match 3-1, giving Vintage their first win of the night. The two sides then split the pairs between them, as Thomson and Jones beat Simons and Mick Hulley 2-0 and Brown and Cliffe won by the same margin versus Steve Griffiths and Jason Marsh.

This made the final score 5-2 to Raging Bull, a win that keeps them second in the table with 46 points. Either side of them are the Railwaymen in first with 58 and the Mouses with 42. The Accy D’s are in fourth, followed by Foxhill in fifth, the Miners in sixth, Vintage in seventh, and the Thorns in eighth. Their second win of the season has put the Understudies up to ninth, while the Warriors round out the table in tenth.