Page 5 - Summer 2012

Page 5:Layout 1 07/08/2012 14:57 Page 1

OXFORD AT THE 5

NATIONAL MIXED

FOURS

After a dismal start when it looked as
though the Oxford One team would be
taking an early bath, but somehow man-
aged to scrape through to the final.
Not since the winning of the mixed
fours carried an automatic entry into the
England squad has there been such a
strong entry as for this year. There were
England squad players aplenty on view Marilyn Davies, Les Woodward,
and some very determined club and Brionne Bland & Dave Wiggins
county players hell bent on preventing the
top players from walking away with the title. Many people’s favourites for the day was the rink
of Barry Hedges, Craig Burgess, Babs Morokutti and Michelle Howe trying to climb the moun-
tain for the umpteenth time, West Sussex were well represented with rinks led by Marc Lan-
caster and Dominic Reed, Devon had a strong looking rink led by the duet of James Smith
and Michael Ivings, Norfolk were as usual well represented by strong rinks led by Mally Wood
and“ Minty” Lamb and Oxford had the old warhorse Dave Wiggins skipping a formidable rink.
There were shocks a plenty in the early round robin stages but the favourite teams all
seemed to survive albeit by gaining second place in their groups.
At the knockout stage there could be no second chances and some of the more fancied
teams bit the dust. The highly skilled North Yorkshire team led by Dave Newsome lost out 11-
12 to the Norfolk 3 rink of Walker, Woods, Sparham and Minty Lamb, the Hedges led rink of
hot favourites were edged out in a thrilling game 4-5 by the Devon Rink.
At the quarter final stage there was even more drama as the Devon Rink were them-
selves eclipsed by the Norfolk rink of Hunt, Reynolds ,Woods and Mally Woods, the East Sus-
sex rink of Shoesmith, Bradley, Wood and Pete Shoesmith sent the Minty Lamb led quartet
home to Norfolk and the highly rated rink of Kath Hoole, Jess Hoole, Matt Allen and Dominic
Reed were unceremoniously dumped out of the competition by the Oxford 1 rink of Briene
Bland, Marilyn Davies, Les Woodward and Dave Wiggins, their counterparts from Oxford
,Sirett, Hasker, Robins and Hasker however fell at this hurdle to the West Sussex 1 rink of
Haulkham, Rolph, Rolph and Marc Lancaster.
At the semi-final stage East Sussex met their Waterloo going down 12-3 to the Wiggins
led Oxford Rink. The second semi Final looked a tough encounter for the Norfolk rink, they
however had a brilliant period when all went right for them as they smashed the resistance of
the West Sussex rink finally winning 14-3.
Having seen the way that the Norfolk rink had disposed of both Devon and West Sussex
they looked to be the team who would possibly win the final however perhaps they had not
thought about the power and cunning of Dave Wiggins who coaxed and cajoled his team into
a powerful position from a slow start.
Brionne Bland acted as a superb anchor-woman as lead. Marilyn Davies was able to
build upon Brionne’s hard work. Les Woodward consolidated and Dave Wiggins as skip was
able to finalise the score for Oxford 13 Norfolk 4, leaving Oxford as worthy winners. As to Ox-
ford’s second team, they were finally eliminated at the quarter final stage.

The under 18’s and Mixed Fours is a combined report from submissions by
ESMBA Chairman Chris Hopkins & Oxfordshire’s Ted Mills