Eastern Counties Carpet Bowls Association

www.englishcarpetbowls.com/eastern

On Sunday 14th April, Hertfordshire hosted the Six Counties Championship, at Braintree Leisure Centre.

For most of the teams involved the day was a story of what might have been, with 2nd to 4th positions separated by a single point at the end of the day.

Sadly for Bedfordshire their finishing position was in little doubt for most of the day. They were unable to repeat their highly creditable fourth place finish from last year, although their day had started well, taking 5 of the 12 points on offer against last year's champions Suffolk. Unfortunately for them that was the highlight of the day as they succeeded in accumulating just 10 more points from their remaining 4 opponents, finishing well adrift of the other teams.

For Hertfordshire though, it could easily have been so much better. In contrast to Bedfordshire they started slowly and improved as the day went on. Unfortunately that low point occurred against the team who would turn out to be their nearest rivals, Norfolk. A 12-0 defeat had left them playing catch up all day, by the end of which they were just 4 points adrift of Norfolk and only 5 behind the runners-up, following a highlight 8-4 win over Cambridgeshire in the final session.

Norfolk had begun the day well against Hertfordshire and led the standings at the very start of the day. But the blight on their day came in the next session as they dropped all 12 points to Suffolk. After that they got back on track, sharing the points with both Essex and Cambridgeshire and beating Herts. But the odd point against Suffolk would have made the world of difference as they finished just 11 shots away from third and 1 point away from second place.

Cambridgeshire had a disappointing day by their standards. Although they managed to take maximum points off Bedfordshire, they failed to get the best of any of their other opponents, with the lowlight of their day the final session defeat at the hands of Hertfordshire. That result left them in third place, having spent most of the day in second and being in contention for the win all the way up until the last session.

The key to Essex's second place finish was consistency. They started well by taking a 7-5 win over Cambridgeshire, after which they took 8 points off Bedfordshire and shared the points with Herts, Norfolk and finally Suffolk. That last result was enough to elevate them to a surprise runner-up spot at the very end of the day, by a single point.

After a slow start against Bedfordshire, Suffolk got into gear by taking maximum points against Norfolk, a result which put them to the top of the leaderboard. And it was a position which they proceeded to hold on to throughout the day, although their lead was never a comfortable one as Cambridgeshire stayed on their tails, until the penultimate session by which time Suffolk had edged themsleves into a 6 point lead, giving them the luxury of know exactly what they needed to do. As it was Cambridgeshire's stumble meant that the title was already in their hands as they came home with 7 point lead to retain the title.

A copy of all the day's results can be downloaded here.