Sporting Lions and Trojans in fine form

OVER the last few seasons, the top two teams in the Hinckley Air Rifle League have been the Trojans and the Sporting Lions, and it’s certainly beginning to look as if the prolonged Covid enforced break has done nothing to change this.

Having won their first two matches of the season, the Trojans must have gone into their match against their guests from the New Plough Inn filled with confidence. However, this might have been dented slightly by the evidence of a pretty evenly balanced first half. Nigel Hill started the match with a 29 for the visitors which was joined by a Glen Foxon 28 and a trio of 24s. The Trojans did slightly better thanks to Phil Hood’s 30, Nigel Jackson’s 27, Rob Forman’s 26, and Dave Brown’s 25 but the difference wasn’t so great as to dispel all hope for the Plough. The Plough’s second half started reasonably well thanks to Dave Statham’s 26 and finished strongly with 28s from John Bray and Tom Bray but good as these were they weren’t quite enough as the home side moved to a 193 to 187 victory thanks to Leigh Hall’s 30; Chris Sills’ 28; and the 26s of Mark Smith and Mark Horsler.

This wasn’t enough to give the Trojans the top spot as the Sporting Lions held onto that thanks to an easy win over the visiting Ashby Road ‘B’. Sadly, the win wasn’t ever in doubt; even on their best form Ashby Road would struggle to beat their hosts but with just five shooters it was impossible for them to score a competitive total. This is to take nothing away from the Lions who, once again, were the top scoring team of the night, their 196 team score made up of the 29s of Glen Dainter and Todd Astill; the 28s of Karl Bunting, Jeanette Mulkeirins, Melanie Jenkins, and Bill Bend; and Alison Smith’s 26. The visitors that did turn up shot well with successive 28s from Jon Storer and Kim Baker preceding Andrew Cryer’s 30, Mike Sansome’s 27, and Rikki Hammersley’s 25 but these were only enough to take them to 138.

Smallshaws maintained their own unbeaten start to the season with a comfortable victory over the visiting Hounds. The visitors won the toss and decided to shoot first, but they failed to capitalise on this, particularly in the first half where their best scores were the 26s of Claire Barnes and Chris Allen, plus Lee Foskett’s 25. Smallshaws easily beat those with Olivia Wainwright’s opening 25 being followed by a 26 from Rob Wainwright, Rob Good’s 28, and the 27s of Michael Stephens and Jackie West. The Hounds improved markedly in the second half with Paul Griffin’s 27 and Paul Huddlestone’s 30, but the resulting 178 wasn’t nearly enough as the home side reached 188 thanks to Jamie Slimm’s 25, Bob West’s 26, and Tom Williams’ 29.

The main surprise to come out of the visit of Hinckley Phoenix to Ashby Road was just how poor the visitors were. In their previous match they had scored a creditable 187; this time around they finished on just 167 despite having, by and large, the same shooters. The solitary bright spot in an otherwise disappointing performance was Ian Ratheram’s closing 28, during which he scored as many fives as the rest of his team combined. The reply from Ashby Road was much more assured as first half 27s from Gabrielle Finney and Alison Finney combined with a second half consisting of Seamus Moore’s 28, Innes Droomer’s 26, Richard White’s 27, and Pete Finney’s 28 to give them a total of 186 and victory by 19.