TENBY 96 (12 pts) SAUNDERSFOOT 63 (2)

After several weeks on the road, including league victories at Pendine (11-3) and Castle, Haverfordwest (12-2), as well as last week’s nail-biting Carruthers clash, it was a welcome return to home turf for the N. D. Toy and Partners Tenby team on Saturday. Visitors to the Sutton Street green for a division one league match were near neighbours Saundersfoot, who have not been enjoying the best of seasons, but as always, rivalry between the two teams is intense, and the ’Foot were keen to lower Tenby’s colours. Tenby had selected a youthful looking team for this match, in contrast to Saundersfoot who had considerable ‘experience’ on their side. This was highlighted by the fact that during the tea-break, their skipper Berwyn Dennis revealed that he was in fact his side’s ‘youngest’ player - if he had been playing for Tenby, he would have been the ‘oldest’... if it hadn’t been for one grey (silver)-haired old codger who was responsible for raising the average age of the home team by some considerable margin!

And, as it out turned out, it was another grey (silver) streaked member of the Tenby team - albeit several years his junior - who took on the youthful Berwyn on rink one, namely Jonathan Webb, standing in as skip in the absence of John Roberts, who was away on international duty. A close encounter ensued, with the Tenby rink holding a slight two-shot advantage after 10 ends. After that, Berwyn, ably backed up by his  three cohorts, put the home rink to the sword with an impressive display, including one count of seven when he cleverly nudged a front bowl onto the jack and moved it a foot to the waiting pack. Coming with only three ends remaining, it was too much for the Tenby rink to recover from as the Saundersfoot foursome went on to win 24-14. It was to be the visitors only  points, though, as the remaining home rinks more than covered the deficit, with comfortable 17, 16 and 10-shot victories over their counterparts, to record a 12-2 victory.

Rink scores (Tenby first, Saundersfoot skips only) were:

Neil Dickinson, Joe Criddle, Joe Richards, Jonathan Webb 14; Berwyn Dennis 24.
Ben Sheldon, James Criddle, Luke Guymer, Craig Guymer 28; John Dugmore 11.
Luke Rees, Aaron Lloyd, Ben Simmons, Andrew Muskett 29; Steve Dick 19.
Cameron White, Steve Sheldon, Mike Jackson, Peter Day 25; Brian Desmond 9.

Last (Thursday) night, Tenby were due to host Pendine in a rearranged league match, while tomorrow (Saturday), they are back on the road for their second round Carruthers Shield clash against Pontrhydyfen. They are wished the best of luck.