Ashby Road ease to victory as Moore holds his nerve

OVER the last few years there has been little to choose between the Hinckley Air Rifle League teams from Ashby Road and Hinckley Phoenix, with wins going to both in roughly equal numbers. In their first meeting this season Hinckley Phoenix came out ahead by just two shots but on this occasion Ashby Road hoped to benefit from their home advantage to reverse that.

At one point this looked highly likely as the Phoenix team struggled to score highly. Barry Wright gave them a reasonable start with his 27 but no subsequent shooters managed to better this.

Geoff Herbert emulated it in the second half; and Luke Bown, Craig Bown and Ian Ratheram all came close to it with the 26s; but these were only enough to take them slightly disappointing totals of 182 and 7 points. Ashby Road’s reply started well with the first three scores being a 26-28-26 sequence from Alison Finney, Richard White and Innes Droomer but the remaining first half shooters did much less well leaving an Ashby Road team missing three of their top five shooters requiring a good second half performance to take the wins.

Neil Smith’s excellent 28 gave them renewed hope but the next shooter’s score left last man Seamus Moore needing a 29. He found the bull with his first two shots but a four from his next really piled the pressure on him. Fortunately for his team he held his nerve, ringing the bell with each remaining shot for the 29 that gave Ashby Road totals of 183 and 8 points.

Ashby Road ‘B’ travelled the short distance to the Hinckley Working Men’s Club home of the Sporting Lions hoping to improve on the draw that came from the reverse fixture earlier in the season. Their first half did well thanks to Kim Baker’s 26, Neil Price’s 27, Craig Shuttleworth’s 28, and Jon Storer’s 30, and whilst the second half failed to match this level, a 27 from Mike Sansome, and the 26s of Alf Shore, Martyn Wood and Jeff Goodyer allowed them to set reasonably chal- lenging totals of 190 and 11 points. The response from the Sporting Lions started in their normal strong manner, with Todd Astill’s opening 30 preceding Glen Dainter’s 29 and Karl Bunting’s 28 but after this their scoring dried up quite dramatically with only Taryn Cockerill’s second half 26 being worthy of note, leaving them short on both fronts with 187 and 5 points.

The Trojans took advantage of the Lions’ slip-up to move to the top of the table thanks to a comfortable win over their guests from the New Plough Inn. The Trojans were a little less impressive than normal but a Rebecca Horsler 27; the 28s of Dave Brown, Leigh Hall, Mark Smith and Chris Sills; and Phil Hood’s 29 were enough to take them to respectable 193 and 7 point totals. The Plough’s reply started well thanks to Daniel Lakin’s initial 27 but soon tailed away. They picked up at the end of the second half thanks to Nigel Hill’s 28 and John Bray’s 26 but these were too little, too late and they finished on just 177 and 5 points.

Taylor & Ayre played hosts to Smallshaws at The Barn where, having won the toss, the home side elected to shoot first.

They exhibited admirable consistency in their first half counting scores with Aly Steele, Glenn Foxon and Giles Headley all shooting 28s. For Smallshaws Rob Wainwright and Tom Williams hit 27s, Bob Wainwright got a 26 and ‘birthday boy’ Chris Slimm scored 25.

T&A’s consistency continued after supper, with Alison Smith and Matt Hall also scoring 28s whilst Paul Griffin and Darren Hicks went one better, becoming joint top scorers with 29s and taking their total scores to 198 and 11 points.

The visitors’ were also consistent, with Simon Grewcock shooting a 26 before Jackie and Bob West scored 27s but these left them behind in both competitions as they finished on 185 and 9 points.