All 10 first division teams were in action last week. On the Monday Morriston B at home to Castell Nedd Emperors started badly by defaulting their bottom board. One more default and they will start to accrue penalty points. In spite of this set back they managed to scrape the win by winning on boards 1 & 4 and drawing the other two. The result takes Morriston B into 5th place just above Emperors. On the Tuesday BF Nidum kept themselves in top spot by defeating White Knights B at Llanelli. Only a top board win by Nicholas Evans stopped the rot and Nidum had to be content with a 4-1 win. On the Wednesday both White Knights A & C were in action at home. White Knights A made short work of BF Brunel taking all 5 boards and with 1 match in hand are in a very strong position. White Knights C played Morriston C with the same result as their last meeting; one win apiece plus three draws and they shared the points. Thursday saw the final Division 1 match of the week with a much depleted Morriston A traveling to De la Beche’s new venue in West Cross. With their top three players missing Morriston A could consider themselves lucky to be playing the doomed De La Beche A and they went home the winners 0.5-4.5 with only an excellent draw by Mark Wilson stopping the whitewash.

Division 2 was not quite so busy with just 8 of 11 teams in action. No surprise in the first match on the Monday when White Knights D, with a grading advantage on every board, travelled to the Coopers Arms to take on Morriston D. The 1½-3½ victory for White Knights was probably a better result for the Morriston team than they were expecting. The same goes for bottom of the table Hawks who travelled to Tonna to take on Castell Nedd Tribunes, no doubt thinking of the 5-0 drubbing they were hit with when Tribunes visited them. This time round, however, Tribunes fielded a much weaker team and Hawks were probably more than content to share the points. Two wins each plus a draw. On Wednesday with two first division teams playing at home White Knights still managed to send out a strong White Knights E to take on UK Harriers. The 1½-3½ victory for second place Knights takes them back into top spot although with only a 1 point advantage and having played an extra 3 matches. The surprise of the week, however, has to be the draw achieved by Morriston E against title contenders UK Merlins. Out graded on every board wins by Mateusz Sieduszewski and Eleanor Collins on boards 1 & 3 coupled to a draw on board 2 allowed them to share the points. Sharing the points has moved Morriston E above their D team compatriots and boosted Merlins into third spot above BF Giants.

07/02/2016