Wots Ganin

Gaz Calcott Pool Guru...

Not the best time for Warwickshire Mens teams to travel to Tewksbury for a county match against Gloucester as it turned out that approx half the f**king squad couldn’t make the match for various reasons

Phil Parkin, Jason Page, Ben Gilbey and Terry Parkin had to be drafted into the A team to make up the shortfall of players.

Fair play to them, they won the 1^st section 6-5 and then surprised Gloucester (and themselves) by winning the 2^nd section 6-5 to take a 12-10 lead.

It was obviously too good to last – they lost the 3^rd section 9-2 to enter the final section 19-14 behind. Unfortunately, the lads lost the 4^th section 6-5 to end up losing 25-19 overall.

There were 3 out of 4’s from Rob Butterworth, Andy West and Paul Willis.

Team: Paul Willis, Baz Hinde, Craig Sturmey, Rob Butterworth, Phil Parkin, Daz Lee, Jason Page, Terry Parkin, Ben Gilbey, Andy West and Ben Deeley.

The B team were trying to reach the halfway point of the season without losing and it appeared to be going well up to the midway stage of the match. Having won the first 2 sections 7-4 to go 14-10 in front, Gloucester decided to serve the food during the third section and we decided to have a mare!

It was left to Dave Collins to stop them winning the last 6 frames to make the score at the end of third section 14-19. Because the A team had taken 4 of the B’s players, they were unable to make any changes so they went into the last section 5 frames up. Russ Blinco took the first frame and Gloucester came back and took the next 3 to make it 20-17 and to their credit the just would not lie down.

A couple of players missing for the B team provided openings for Steve Valentine and Dave Hegarty to get their first start in a county match as the team attempted to build on their 2 out of 2 winning start to the 2008 campaign.

Azza stopped the rot to win frame 38 making it 21-17 only for Gloucester to win the next 5 frames to take the lead 22-21 and there was an air of disbelief descending on the Warks players and so it was left to the captain to salvage a draw.With their tails up and the sniff of their first win of the season, the room filled up with players from both teams as the final game started.

Capt Dave Collins played very well to beat some young sprog who fancied himself to earn Warks B a draw - what a match!

Azza got man of the match - they didn't give it Dave Collins because he won the last frame to deny them the win ….. well, that’s what Dave reckons anyway!

There were some very good 3 out of 4’s from Russ Blinco, Howard Bailie, Aaron Easson, Dave Collins and Chris Lowe.

Team: Russ Blinco, Martin Groves, Howard Bailie, Steve Valentine, Aaron Easson, Roy Pontefract, Neil Pincham, Dave Lea, Dave Collins, Dave Easson and Chris Lowe.