Tarr Babies Come Of Age In Handicap Shield

This week saw a break in league matches as the first round of the Handicap Shield took over with some fabulous close matches made even closer by the awarding of handicap points to the lower placed teams. One such team were Division Three outfit DTH Redlands Tarr Babies who despite being in the division below their more illustrious opponents Stanley Street 'B', they didn't even require the 100 handicap points allotted to them at the end of the match to go through to the next round!
The Tarr Babies trio of Antony Coupe, Lewis Comley and Matthew Mudd pulled of the win of the first round by actually beating Stanley Street 'B' by 32 points before the handicap points were added at the end of the match and with all three players hitting top form at the same time it left Stanley Street's Jack Kirkland, Matthew Williams and  Andy Kirkland with just too much to do and they ended up going down by a score line of 310-442.
The other Stanley Street team Stanley Street 'A' also went out of the competition to a side in the division below and also from Redlands as well! DTH Redlands Cypriots took a fair old pasting on the night but Jason Poole, Conor Bell and Adam Hamilton all kept plugging away knowing that every point that they could manage to win could make a difference once the handicap score was added at the end. Stanley Street 'A' subjected  the Cypriots to a bit of a mauling with Nigel Stent, Peter Eyre and Alex Millward all scoring the maximum points that they could and ended up racking up a score of 378 points to only 90 in return but when the sealed envelope was opened at the end of the contest it revealed that the Cypriots had been awarded 306 points and when added to the scores it meant that the Cypriots went through by a small margin of 18 points 396-378.
Another side that felt the effects of the handicap points making a difference to the result were Ryton Park Adders, despite the fact that they were up in every game played the Adders side of John Hallgarth, Mike Novicelli and captain Andy Lee still lost to Manton Sports by only 14 points. They ended their games 370 points to 244 ahead but then had to watch in horror as the envelope opened at the end of the night revealed that the Sports team had been awarded 140 points and therefore the Adders went out of the competition by 384 points to 370. Manton Sports side of John Lowde, Alan Wilson and Keith Smith have a good pedigree in handicap competitions having won the Reg Wilcox Trophy last season and could be the dark horses of this competition.
Last season's Handicap Shield winners Ryton Park Cougars started their defence of the trophy with a good win over DTH Redlands Red Bulls. Although the Cougars are a division below the Red Bulls they fought hard and Dave Lee, Alex Olliffe and Dave Rix managed to muster up a total of 216 points between them with the Red Bulls trio of Tom McIntosh, Brian Hall and Steve Johnson getting to a good total of 361 which included maximum points for both McIntosh and Johnson. However in the end it was the points conceded that did for them as a handicap of 175 was awarded to the Cougars to take them through to round 2 by a score of 391 to 361.
Three other teams reached the 3nd round this week, not by playing out of their skins or having a generous handicap awarded to them but by the fact that their opponents turned up a player short meaning that in reality they started the match 126-0 down before a ball had even been hit.  DTH Redlands Dynamos beat Ryton Park Eagles 425-251, DTH Redlands Joggers beat Centre For Sport 378-370 and finally Global Marble beat DTH Redlands Morris Men 375-327.