Golf: Bradford defend their Yorkshire Inter District team championship at Selby on Sunday hoping to turn the tables on league champions Sheffield.

Team captain Tim Wade has picked a strong line-up for the six-man event and feels they will be well suited to the tests Selby will provide.

But he singles out Sheffield and East Riding as the main threat to their hopes of a fifth county team title.

"Sheffield have got to start favourites," he said. "Leeds have been weakened by the absence of three of their internationals but we will be going all out to do our best.

"Selby is a sandy, flat course and I expect it to be a low scoring competition."

Bradford include Open champion Paul Thomas and his West Bradford team-mate Darryl Berry, while youngster Gareth Evans gets his chance after winning the first four Inter-Union singles matches he played in for Bradford.

Andy Dufton (Woodhall Hills), Phil Wood (Keighley) and Ian Martin (Baildon) complete the team with David Woodcock (Cleckheaton) travelling as reserve.

Bradford seemed to have done all the hard work needed to finish runners-up in the Yorkshire Inter-Union League when they led Teesside 9-3 after the foursomes at Northcliffe on Sunday.

And with two wins and a half from the top four ties in the singles, it seemed a formality that they would take maximum points.

But in a rare capitulation, for once the lower end of the order proved to be the team's Achilles heel with the last four out, James Firth, Andy Utley, Andy Brown and Karl Curran all losing as the match finished all square at 18-18.

That gave Leeds just the chance they needed to leapfrog into second place behind Sheffield, and they scored a thumping 27-9 margin against Harrogate to finish above Bradford.

It all took the shine off two tremendous individual performances in the singles by Berry and Martin.

Berry looked as if a half was the best he could hope for when he hit sand at the par three 18th with his opponent Graham Border safely on the green. But he produced an immaculate bunker shot to hole out for a birdie that floored his Castle Eden rival.

And Martin looked down and out when he was four down against the highly-rated Jonathan Lupton from Middlesbrough, but made a great fightback to snatch a half from the match.

There was disappointment, though, for Gareth Evans, who saw his four-match winning streak since coming into the side ended by Eaglescliffe's Gareth Cousins.

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