The second leg of the annual Winter Friendly against Caerleon RFC PC was played today at a rather chilly Caerlon but at least the rain held off untill the last 30 mins or so.
In order to involve as may players as possible, it was agreed to increase the number of games from the usual format to: 12 x Singles, 7 x Doubles, 5 x Triples.
Monkstone were 12 points down from the first leg but closing the gap, particularly with the extra games, was by no means an impossible task.
The opening Singles went well for Monkstone with a 7-5 [14pts to 10pts] win during which Phil Roberts beat Gemma Foster [13-12] for the third successive time and Vickie Adshead beat Steve Snudden [13-4] to record an unexpected, particularly by her, win. Monkstone had made up 4 of the 12 point deficit.
The Doubles, which hadn’t gone well for Monkstone in the 1st Leg, went even better that the singles this time round with the away team winning 5-2 [15pts to 6pts] giving Monkstone a 1 point overall lead in the competition. Beryl McCarthy continued her winning run in the doubles from the 1st Leg, this time showing Bernard Adshead how to point, in a 13-10 win.
So onto the Triples where Monkstone needed to win at 3 out of 5 games to win the trophy for the 3rd successive year. Ultimately Monkstone fell just short by taking only 2 of the 5 triples and so losing the competition by 4 points [64 – 68] but took some consolation from winning on the 2nd Leg [39 – 31].
A terrific effort by the whole team paricularly the less experienced players who found themselves drawn against Caerleon’s top players.
The competitive but friendly spirit that this fixture has become accustomed to continues but the time had come for Monkstone Captain, Bernard, to hand over the trophy to Caerleon Captain, Kon Tomczyk, while asking him to look after it as we want it back next year!
Kon Tomczyk, Keith Wanklyn (Caerleon V-Chair) & Bernard Adshead
Many many thanks to all those who took part over the two legs and I hope that the less experienced players got something out the competition.
FULL RESULTS of the 2 legs
