With all 10 teams in action it was a full week in the first division. It started with Morriston A and Morriston C hosting White Knights B and BF Brunel respectively. Morriston A were back to full strength and only a bottom board draw spared the Knights’ blushes (4½-½ to Morriston A). Morriston C, on the other hand, were always going to struggle against a stronger Brunel team especially when they started with a bottom board default. A top board win by Ian Eustis saved the whitewash (1-4 in favour of Brunel) but they suffered the additional ignominy of picking up a penalty point because of accumulated defaults.

The Tuesday matches featured CN Emperors at home to title contenders White Knights A and BF Nidum at home to Morriston B. The Knights needed to win to keep up the pressure on Morriston A and with less than a full strength side it was a close run thing. Only a win by David Buttell stopped Emperors from sharing the points and although the 2-3 win to the Knights keeps them firmly in the running it did not improve their game point average. The Morriston club appear to be struggling for players and the B team went “one better” than their C team by turning up two players short against Nidum. It was bit of a surprise, therefore, that they managed to claw back the deficit and thanks to wins on boards 2 & 3 coupled with a top board draw succeeded in drawing the match.

Thursday saw De la Beche A take on White Knights C and although they were seriously out graded on every board it was not an embarrassing loss. 1½-3½ to the visitors with good results from Peter Smith and Gary Harber.

Morriston A stay top of the division with two matches to play. Second place White Knights A have four. It looks like going down to the wire.

There were four matches in Division 2 spread over the week. Tuesday saw White Knights D annihilate UK Hawks 5-0 to keep up the pressure on BF Bluebell and UK Merlins. On Wednesday UK Harriers were unlucky not to grab a point against Morriston D when only a board 2 blunder allowed Morriston D to walk away 1½-3½ winners. On the Thursday BF Bluebell who were away to White Knights E just managed to scrape through 2-3 and boost themselves back into top spot just ahead of Merlins and White Knights D. With the three leaders having 4 or 5 matches still to play and only two points separating them it is a difficult race to call.

Friday’s match between Morriston E and CN Tribunes gave Morriston E their best win of the season. Admittedly Tribunes turned up two players short but the 5-0 score that allowed Morriston E to leapfrog them into seventh place had to be a bit of a shock.

06/03/2016