Toys Pull Four Points Clear At The Top

Reigning Division One Champions DTH Redlands Fluffy Toys have put some daylight between themselves and their nearest title challengers with a comfortable 9-1 win over bottom side Manton Tigers. Siblings Richard and Tom Wesley both returned hat tricks and rarely looked troubled all night by the Tigers trio of Bill Bateman, Paul Allison and Steve Beeston but the same couldn't be said for Toys third player Steve Johnson. Johnson was first taken the distance against Paul Allison, managing to win the deciding set 14-12 but then against Bateman and despite being 2-1 ahead he couldn't repeat the feat a second time eventually losing 3-2. Bateman's excellent win was the only success on the night for the Tigers as they went on to lose the doubles set and with it the match 9-1.
Stanley Street 'A' who are closer to the relegation trap door than they would like and who are scrapping for every point they can get where this week away at DTH Redlands Roosters who have no such worries sitting comfortably in 3rd place in the division. Street's cause wasn't helped by having to play a player up from Division Two to put out a full team and they were up against it before the match had even started and to make matters worse they ran into an inform Rick Harris who has now won 33 out of his 45 matches this season and duly went about beating all three Street 'A' players in Peter Eyre, Matthew Williams and Andy Kirkland. Eyre didn't let being beaten by Harris get him down for too long and hit back to beat both Steve Fox and Dave Gascoyne in straight sets but these were the only two singles wins his team could manage and despite winning the doubles set it wasn't enough to stop them slipping to a 7-3 defeat, a defeat that leaves them just 3 points above the relegation zone having played a game more than the team below them.
After their latest win Division Two side Manton Nomads are now just one win away from securing one of the two promotion places to Division One although the race to see who will go up as Champions is far less certain as their title rivals Ryton Park Eagles also won to keep the pressure on. The Eagles win came away at Stanley Street 'C' who had all three Riauba brothers playing for them with contrasting fortunes for all three. Valentinas managed to win two out of his three matches with the best win of the two by far being against Brian Allen who before the match had only lost once all season in the league. Orestas managed to register a single win over Keith Swift with Martynas going home empty handed. The man in form for the Eagles was John Hallgarth who beat all three Riauba brothers before teaming up with Allen to win the doubles to register a 7-3 win for the Eagles.
Manton Nomads had a far easier night than their title rivals playing bottom side Ryton Park Cougars who have yet to register a league win so far this season and that statistic didn't change as they lost 10-0 with hat tricks all round for the league leaders trio of Richard Robinson, Steve Elkin and Rob Vaughan with Elkin and Vaughan also winning the doubles.
DTH Redlands X-Youth are still in with a chance of finishing in third position after a battling performance saw them narrowly beat Stanley Street 'B' 6-4 to close the gap to third place to just 3 points. Street 'B's Ralph Rodda had a terrific night personally with an impressive hat trick of wins over Clive Eden, Jeff Reay and Ewan Pickersgill and when Adam Hamilton defeated Pickersgill it looked like Street 'B' might just pinch and unlikely draw but it wasn't to be as Eden and Reay both won two each and when Pickersgill beat Mitchell Radford it left Eden and Reay needing to win the doubles which they did to take all three points for their side.
In the race for the two promotion places in Division Three Stanley Street Rascals had mixed fortunes this week. After just managing to beat Stanley Street 'E' 6-4 the previous night they were then up against one of their promotion rivals DTH Redlands Tarr Babies in a game that was postponed earlier in the season. The match was a tight affair from the start and despite the importance of the match both sides played it in the right spirit with the Man Of The Match being Liam Stead who beat all three Tarr Babies and when Ellis Spacey beat Adam Pinches it put the Rascals in with a chance of a draw going in to the all important doubles set. For the Tarr Babies Pinches and Josh Nelson paired up to take on Stead and Spacey for the Rascals and soon won the first game before Stead and Spacey won the next to level it at 1-1 but that was the last game they won as Pinches and Nelson took the next two games to take the doubles rubber to ensure a narrow 6-4 win for the Tarr Babies.
Other Division Three Results: Ryton Park Dragons 1 Stanley Street 'D' 9, On-Line Elks 7 Ryton Park Falcons 3