Nelson Nomad secured one point victory over Lothersdale 'B' in the Jeff Naylor Cup Round Two.
The win turned on the outcome of the set between each team's best performer on the night, Lothersdale's David Galley and Nomad Michael Wrigley. Defending a 72 point advantage, Lothersdale were on course to win until Wrigley completely destroyed a bemused Galley (-4) 21-5, 21-12.
From that moment the Dalesmen were on the back foot and although Galley fought hard in their cause to defeat David Ayrton (+14) 21-19, 21-14 and Catherine Lawson (+10) 21-11, 21-19, fittingly it was Wrigley (+49) who finished off the proceedings, holding on 17-21, 21-14 against Peter Midgley in the final set to clinch a win for his team by the narrowest of margins.
Mornington Road witnessed another tight encounter when Embassy 'C' defended a 90 point start against their 'A' team. A disastrous start saw 23 points slip away in the first rubber when Neil Foley (+52) went to town against Derek Briggs 21-8, 21-11. The 'C' team rallied briefly as Nadim Asghar (-4) held Mike Czuba (+35) 19-21, 21-17 and Clive Sherratt only dropped a handful against Palminder Sandhu 21-18, 21-19, but further strong performances by Czuba against Briggs (21-14, 21-10) and Sherratt (21-9, 21-14), plus a cool 21-15, 21-11 defeat of Sherratt by the impressive Foley helped the 'A' string to an 8 point win.
Mid-table Division Two outfit Ilkley Road 'A', needing to score at least an average of 17 points per game against First Division Ukrainians, feared the worst as Steve Barton faced up to Steve Rutherford in the first rubber. Amazingly, although the statistics show that Barton is currently only returning a Division Two average of 50% whereas Rutherford is flying in Division One with 67%, Barton kept his team ahead of schedule by allowing Rutherford a mere 6 point advantage with a 21-16, 21-20 scoreline. From this moment the Roaders sensed that the Ukies were far from focused and Roy Towler (+5) especially took advantage, sharing with Rutherford 20-21, 17-21, taking 16 points off Harkawy 20-21, 21-4 and only just failing against Peter Holbrook 21-19, 21-17. Holbrook (+44), despite this slip was the Ukrainian's best player but could not stop his team stumbling to a 19 point defeat.
Although Lothersdale 'C's Richard Crookes posted the round's equal best tally (+64) away at Ilkley Road 'B', of equal influence on the visitor's ultimate 23 point success was the surprising lack of form by Ilkley Road's number one, Karl McIntyre who finished with -54. Following a 21-5, 21-11 hammering by the effervescent Crookes, McIntyre stumbled 21-12, 21-11 against John Rix (+40) and dropped a further 9 points against Alec Pue (+9) 21-13, 21-20. Prior to this, Pue had shared with the hard working Rob McLean (-33) 15-21, 21-16, but Chris Dunn (-8) was comfortably the Riddlesden team's best performer on the night, a narrow 21-18, 21-16 defeat at the hands of John Rix was followed by a commanding 21-10, 21-15 win against Alec Pue.
Keith Wilkinson (+64) shared the round's top player mantle as his team Oakworth 'A' made nonsense of Wilsden's 108 point advantage to win by 46 points. Wilkinson's impressive successes came against Adam Broadbent 21-16, 21-10; Luke Broadbent 21-13, 21-12 and Dave Broadbent 21-6, 21-5 as the Oaks thundered into the quarter finals. Ben Lowe (+49) and Steve Busfield (+41) gave solid support with only Adam managing to share with them, winning the first 21-15 on both occasions before losing the second 21-10 and 21-17 respectively.
Munza Nazir (+5) really didn't deserve to be on the losing side as Terrier's 'C' eased to an 18 point win over his Stockbridge Spartans team. A good 21-15, 21-18 defeat of Paul Lister came between a share of the spoils 21-20, 14-21 with John Morris and a +2 rubber, 21-17, 19-21 against Steve Wands (+29). Unfortunately for him, team-mates Ryan Foulds (-37) and Ray Wallace (-23) failed to provide any meaningful support. Morris (+32) was top man for the winners, with a sparkling 21-18, 21-7 defeat of Wallace being his best on the night as his team surged through to the quarter finals.
RESULTS
Naylor Cup (Round Two): Cononley Sports conceded to Terriers 'A'; Embassy 'A' 363, Embassy 'C' 355; Ilkley Road 'A' 403, Ukrainians 384; Ilkley Road 'B' 458, Lothersdale 'C' 481; Lothersdale 'B' 370, Nelson Nomads 371; Oakworth 'A' 384, Wilsden 338; Terriers 'C' 480, Stockbridge Spartans 443.
Division One: Terriers 'A' 2, Embassy 'A' 8; Terriers 'A' 9, Lothersdale 'B' 1.
Division Three: South Craven 0, Oakworth 'B' 10.
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