All county teams – Fixtures 1 & 2

All 3 teams opened their season with 2 consecutive matches.

Saturday Oct 8th
Newly promoted Tornados opened their campaign with a match against their county colleagues in the Terriers. The former welcomed back Ben, Rose and Simon returning after some years of absence, and also Steve Packer (ex West Yorkshire). The Terriers welcomed back Oliver and also 3 new players into the side. This match also saw Francis Boatman clock up his 100th appearance for the county and captain Rod presented him with a trophy to commemorate this achievement. He becomes only the 16th player to achieve this distinction (see NYSMBA | Caps)
The 33-7 (+123 shots) result in favour of the Tornados was a great start in their bid to re-establish themselves in the top division once again.

The Tigers meanwhile were playing against Humberside B in the other half of the hall. The 30-10 (+72 shots) result was an improvement on last year’s equivalent match (24-16) and is a very good start in their goal of gaining promotion this season.

Sunday Oct 9th
The Tornados and Terriers were both at home once again facing up to West Yorkshire and Stockport A respectively. The Leeds based team have lost some familiar old faces and have now had to disband their B team. Nevertheless, many of their “old stagers” remain and the match provided some good battles which the team were able to overcome and end with a 28-12 (+36 shots) result. The Terriers meanwhile were hoping to improve on last year’s 19-21 result but although Tom Wakefield’s Four remained undefeated the final 7-33 (-113 shots) defeat was disappointing.

The Tigers had travelled to Derbyshire for their match and although the side included 3 new players, they were unfortunately still 1 player short, and the match went against them by 16-24 (-61 shots).