Castlefields set standards in Shropshire knockout

The Shrewsbury giants won the Premier League’s Mayhew Trophy for a record ninth time when they beat Sir John Bayley by 18 shots in Saturday night’s final.

And in defeating the reigning league champions on the non Premier green at Meole Brace, Fields became the first club to win the trophy three times in a row in its 25-year history.

They won only five of the 12 games, but they were never behind once Michael Beer had won 21-5 in the first four – and fellow big gun Callum Wright weighed in with a 21-7 card at No. 9 to ensure victory was never in real doubt.

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There were times when the Bayley Boys looked to have real hope, Castlefields duo Rich Goddard (10-2 against Clay Flattley) and Adie Rowe (10-1 versus Chris Worthington) having to battle back from well down to get decent scores in a first four that ended with the eventual winners seven chalks ahead.

Best game of the night came in the middle four when Bayley star Scott Simpson won the Mark Burroughs man-of-the-match award for his 21-16 win over Jon Palmer as the Telford club went into the back four just one shot adrift.

But once Wraight had got to work on his usual 20 metre marks the mood changed – and when Fields’ joint-skipper Adam Jones put together a great run to go from about 10-7 down to run out against Kevin Hocknull in the corners the outcome was settled.

“Well done to Castlefields on their success, and commiserations to Sir John Bayley on just losing out in one of the best quality finals the league has seen,” said Premier chief Rob Burroughs.

“Thank you to Meole Brace for hosting, Mike Potter for refereeing and thanks to Barlows Fire &

Security for sponsoring the competition once again and to Alan Mayhew for attending and continuing to support it.”

Final scores – Castlefields 224 Sir John Bayley 206

Michael Beer 21 David Lloyd 5, Paul Williams 21 Alex Jones 20, Rich Goddard 14 Clay Flattley 21, Adie Rowe 18 Chris Worthington 21.

Russell Pugh 21 Ant Bracken 17, Jon Palmer 16 Scott Simpson 21, Andrew Judson 19 Gareth Herbert 21, Graham Wall 18 Nick Wyer 21.

Callum Wraight 21 Kane Beaman 7, Adam Jones 21 Kevin Hocknull 10, Carl Wear 19 Michael Cooper 21, Kevin Price 15 Jamie Wyatt 21.