Tenby 80 (10 Points) v Saundersfoot 73 (4 Points)
16th June 2016
Thursday saw the first league game against Saundersfoot. Tenby having previously beaten them in the Carruthers Shield a few weeks previously. Tenby continued to experiment with their team leading into the Carruthers game against Prestiegne and were grateful to a great finish once again to secure victory. Rink 1: John Roberts returned to the rink of Peregrine with Luke Rees and Liam Price. They played against Saundersfoot skip, Steve Dick. A solid start after five ends, the Tenby team led 7-3 however a run of six consecutive losing ends meant they trailed 7-15 after 11 ends. Saundersfoot continued their dominance to lead 9-20 at the sixteen end mark, but then the Tenby four rallied to win the last five ends 8-0 to close with a defeat 17-20.
Rink 2: The unbeatable’s continued their unbelievable run by beaten the Stephen Poole rink by 26-15. Craig and Luke together with Chris and Mike restricted their opponents to only 9 scoring ends, and when that is only counts of singles and doubles, you are in trouble against this rink who respond with threes and fives. Rink 3: Ben Cloake, Cameron White, Joe Richards and Ryan Thomas played well against the Merv Dennis rink. Taking a five on rink one set up things nicely but at five ends, they only led by one shot. At fifteen ends they fell behind 14-18 but they tied things up leading into the last end (19-19). Holding match, a huge slice of luck by the Saundersfoot skip took a double.
Rink 4: Andrew Muskett played with Paul Diment for the first time in many a year. 11 club championships between them 6 welsh titles and a British Title, they were joined by Peter Day, a two-time County Singles Champion with 2 welsh titles to his name and himself a British Champion. Aaron Lloyd, with two Welsh titles to his name. They played Berwyn Dennis, in my opinion the most accomplished Saundersfoot skip – himself a Welsh International. The Tenby rink fell behind 3-8 at seven ends with Louis Price in great form. At fifteen ends that lead was 9-16 and all looked good for a Saundersfoot win – not only on the rink, but overall. However, Muskett has other ideas, and like Rink 1, only lost one of the remaining ends to sneak a win 18-17. In conclusion, another close game and I must be honest in saying that I though the unbeaten run had come to an end. However, credit again to the Tenby team who certainly know and have proved how to close out games.