Nottingham beat Colchester 4-3

[<<] [>>] by James Death
24 Sep 2005 (AC - Inter-Club)

Keith Aiton (-2) & James Death (-2) lost to Chris Clarke (-2.5) & Jack Wicks (-1) -16
Marcus Evans (-1.5) beat Michael Heap (-0.5) +14
Richard White (-1.5) beat Richard Smith (1) +14

Keith Aiton lost to Chris Clarke -25SPP
James Death beat Jack Wicks +16
Marcus Evans beat Richard Smith +26
Richard White lost to Michael Heap -17

Nottingham beat Colchester 4-3 today at home to reach the final for the first time in a number of years. The top half was a bit quicker than the bottom half with the doubles and the top singles over by lunch with the star turn performed by Chris Clarke completing a 5th turn Septuple peel to take a 2-0 lead in the match. This was after a sedate 6th turn double peel finish in the doubles after an error a piece from Keith Aiton and James Death.

The septuple had 6 peeled before 1, 1-back rush peeled after 3, jawsed 2-back before 5, rush peeled after 5, 3-back going to 1-back, 4-back before 3-back, straight penult and having not rushed to peeling position, put it in peeling position while approaching, played the full jump, failed to get the promotional peel, rush peeled to 2 yds short of the south boundary and just off the centre line, lined up the peel and pegged it out right in the middle when the ball would have gone off the next lawn had it missed.

James Death failed his triple by sticking in 6 but finished from the contact off Jack Wicks when Jack had done the peels of a DPO but got hampered after 4-back.

Meanwhile Marcus Evans and Michael Heap were digging in for the New Year and Richard White and Richard Smith were making better progress. When the teams retired for lunch Richard White had seen off Richard and Marcus eventually got the better of Michael leaving Nottingham 3-2 up at lunch. After lunch Marcus hit everything in sight on route to a +26 win against Richard to claim the match and Michael beat Richard to keep the score line close.