MATCH NEWS Winter League Final
So says victorious Barnsley skipper Glenn Lawrence
THE ALL-conquering Drennan Barnsley Blacks captured their third Angling Trust Winter League title in the last six years, following five wild and windy hours of fishing across the Decoy Lakes and Fenland drains complexes.
Barnsley scored 31 points, 19 in front of silver medallists Daiwa Dorking, with Drennan Oxford coming in third. The Blacks’ Will Freeman finished as top man across the drains with more than 13 kilos of small fish and the team’s other results were just as impressive.
At Decoy, the new champs returned two section wins, a second, a third and sixth. On the drains, Will’s section win was joined by a win, a second and two sevenths to consolidate that great performance on the lakes and add up to a bit of a rout.
“Even we were astonished to score so low on such as big match,” said Barnsley captain Glenn Lawrence. “I could never have imagined scoring 13 points from our five anglers on Decoy and the same goes for the drains! You don’t always need a brilliant set of pegs, though, just ones that give you enough of a chance.”
THE DRAW
“On the drains, only Lee Kerry’s peg looked a bad one but with Will Freeman near the bridge on the Twenty Foot Drain and Nicky Crooks, Dave Brooks and Tom Barlow in the right part of their sections, I couldn’t see too much to concern me.
“Decoy is a different story. Lots of pegs on the lakes don’t give you much of a chance. We drew okay pegs, ones that gave us a chance. Looking at a few other teams after drawing in the morning, I could tell they’d got some shocking pegs!”
ON THE DRAINS
“Getting your head around the peg is important on the drains because they are very different. Some are an out-and-out small fish job, some hold more perch and some more roach or big fish, but as a team, we began fishing breadpunch before moving on to squatt and groundbait.
“Lee Kerry’s peg on the Old Nene at Benwick was a hard one where perch were more important than roach, but he still had over 3kg for seventh and was only 100g from finishing fourth in his section. Will fished
a great match on the Twenty Foot Drain to win that side of the whole match.”
BRILLIANT DECOY RESULTS
“I mixed the anglers fishing Decoy up a little. Alan Scotthorne, a brilliant small fish angler, has been fishing at Lindholme Lakes this winter, so it made sense to have him at Decoy and it was a similar story with James Dent, who went on to win his section.
Alan was our lowest scorer with a midway seven points and he caught over 50lb for that, so he didn’t struggle in any way.”
TOTTING UP THE SCORES
“Back at HQ, we knew we’d won. Speaking to other anglers, it became obvious that there was going to be nothing to touch us.
“With the quality of angler that we have in the squad, our thinking is that if we get half a chance, we’ll win. It’s also worth remembering that this year we were missing Matt Godfrey, Frankie Gianoncelli and Simon Fields, who would all have been in with a shout of fishing.
“It shows the strength in depth that we have. They’re not just good anglers that come into the team – they’re great anglers.