After missing a golden opportunity to become genuine title contenders with a 4-1 defeat to St Andrews "A", Princeville Patriots play their final game of 2015 at home to high flying Pudsey Congs. The earlier fixture, played during a balmy first day in October was one to forget as three compatriots of the Patriots got comprehensively outplayed. Only two positives occured during that night, James Butcher being a sole winner for the Patriots and Ian Tomlinson's visit to Grandma Nicholls Fish and Chip Shop.
First up was the Tomlinson duo, Keith playing A.Stevens and Ian against D.Hirst. Ian got off to a bright start, the equivalent of an limited overs opening batsman making use of the 1st Powerplay. In comparison, Dave was like Joe Sayers at the crease, getting a feel of the conditions before kicking on.
After a 22 break early doors, Ian suddenly hit a prolonged dry scoring run. Whilst some scoring opportunities were difficult to come by, other times execution was lacking. Dave went to work in reducing a 50pt deficit by scoring in instalments and got to parity by the halfway stage. From there it was Nip and Tuck as Ian started to score again, neither player was able to pull away from each other with any lead no greater than 13pts.
In the last eight minutes, both matches were level pegging. Keith v Albert at 155 each, Ian and Dave at 170. In the last three minutes, Ian posessed a slender lead of 6 and played pot yellow, double baulk. With Dave missing, Ian was in position to win but a missed attempt of a 2nd pot yellow, double baulk meant kept Dave's chances alive. The final 90 seconds was very tense stuff as the scores were level at 185 each, Ian missed a half-chance shot to retain posession and run the clock down. The next shot, Dave missed a cannon but ended up getting a middle pocket in-off and ended the match with a break of 10.
Meanwhile on the other table, Keith got Patriots up and running after securing a win after trailing the 1st half by around 20pts against Albert.
Next up was D.Hardcastle v C.Nelthorpe and J.Butcher v M.Hirst. The lead often changed in Don and Colin's game and despite a double figure break from anchorman Don, it was not enough as Colin secured a narrow victory by single digit points.
The match between James and Mick started off rather cautiously, albeit in challenging conditions with the table being sensitive to cooling moisture which resulted in a large amount of unforced errors from both players. During the middle stages, James finally got into gear and produced a workmanlike break of 25. From there Mick could not quite launch a comeback and looked uncharacteristically out of touch. Eventually James registered a 50pt win, which was enough to secure the aggregate and a 3-2 win for the Patriots. Not a bad result against a team who have set the tone in the league this season, but one where it could have easily been 5-0.
