Page 26 - Winter 2017-18

Carpet 5:Layout 1 22-Dec-17 12:14 PM Page 1

26 Suffolk's final session of the day saw them pick up another full house 6 points against
Essex. Norfolk took 5 from Bedfordshire and Herts took 4 from Cambridgeshire, as Sun-
derland sat out the. The final Session of the day (9) saw Suffolk sitting out and there was
a chance for their nearest rivals to do some catching up, which they did. Herts took all 3 wins
against Northumberland to go second while Norfolk dropped just one game against Essex to
stay within a point of Hertfordshire.
The second day opened with Cambridgeshire winning all 3 against Beds to leapfrog Sun-
derland who dropped 2 games against Durham, who themselves were now level with Essex.
While at the foot of the table there were just 2 points between Bedfordshire and Northumber-
land. The next session saw Suffolk drop one of their games to Sunderland but managed to ex-
tend their lead by one. It was now Norfolk who moved into second with 4 points against
Cambridgeshire, with the big surprise being Hertfordshire who lost all of their games to Bed-
fordshire and fell 3 points behind Norfolk. Meanwhile Essex got a full house against Durham
to rise up the table.
Norfolk then had a chance to eat into that Suffolk lead but they could only take one of the
points on offer. With Herts sitting out the session Norfolk stayed second but were now 16 points
in arrears. Essex moved up again by taking 5 off Sunderland. Cambridgeshire picked up 4
against Durham and moved up to third. The crunch match was between Beds and Northum-
berland. This would either be an opportunity for Northumberland to catch up some lost ground
or for Bedfordshire to move further away and it turned out to be the latter as Beds took 5 points,
moving them up above Durham in the process.
In Session 12, the leaders only dropped one point to Bedfordshire and with Norfolk drop-
ping 2 to Herts Suffolk’s lead was extended a little further. Cambridgeshire and Essex shared
their 6 points evenly which meant that they fell one point further back from Norfolk, while Sun-
derland's 4 against Northumberland brought them a little closer. Sunderland then did them-
selves and those around them a favour by winning 2 out of 3 games against Norfolk. But Norfolk
stayed second as Cambridgeshire lost and only picked up 2 points against Suffolk. Cambs
were then leapfrogged by Essex who got 5 points against Northumberland. Meanwhile Durham
and Herts took 3 points each, returning Durham to 7th overall.
While Norfolk sat out the 14th session Essex moved up to second by sharing the points
with Herts and with Cambridgeshire winning 2 out of 3 against Sunderland it mean that second,
third and fourth were covered by just one point and there were only 6 points between second
and sixth. The fight for 7th saw Durham move 2 points ahead of Bedfordshire. However, despite
dropping one game to Northumberland, Suffolk now moved to the brink of retaining the title,
they were now on 64 points, 22 clear at the top and now only Norfolk could beat them.
In session 15 Suffolk needed 2 points for the title and playing Durham they picked up 4
to secure the win with 3 sessions still to be played. Essex continued their good day with 6
against Bedfordshire while Herts did the same against Sunderland, removing any hope that
the Northern team might be able to challenge for second place. The big surprise though was
that Norfolk were only able to pick up 2 points against Northumberland, leaving them in fourth
and seeming to dent their chances of finishing second.
However, as Essex sat out session 16, Norfolk picked up 5 against Durham, Cambs got
all 6 against Northumberland, but Herts only came away with 1 point from Suffolk which meant
that it could hardly be any closer between second, third, fourth and fifth, covered as they were
by just 2 points. In the next session (17), In the fight for second, the biggest losers were Hert-
fordshire as they only won once against Cambridgeshire, although Essex did the same against
Suffolk they were still in touch with Norfolk who took 4 points off Bedfordshire.
So it would be all to play for in the final session with Norfolk and Essex playing one an-
other and separated by just 2 points, although perched between the two of them were Cam-
bridgeshire who, playing Bedfordshire were suddenly favourites to finish second given the
relative positions between them and their final opponents and the reasonable expectation that
Norfolk and Essex would deprive each other of points.