The latest preliminary round game has been played in the John Ford competition - Alsager versus Welsh Row. 

Alsager fielded a very inexperienced team (Nathan Barker-Chadwick, Vivek Nighot, Rajesh Balu, Premnath Ravishan, Becky Tong, Jemma Fryer-Kelsey) to play against arguably the most experienced and strongest team in the league Welsh Row who fielded: Warren Simpson, Jez Touch, Josh Bamford, Dave Dodd, Claire Griffin and Alison Bowker).

Handicapping these matches is always a really difficult task as the expectation is that Welsh Row would overwhelm such an inexperienced team, with the proviso that we all make mistakes!! After much deliberation the handicappers settled on 260 for Alsager. This would mean Alsager scoring 6.5 points in each game. They did this in 13 of the 18 games having just one nightmare game losing 21-0, but in John Ford that does not matter. Nathan and Vivek returned a very good 21-14 against Warren and Jez. Rajesh and Premnath also gave a good account in their games against Josh and Dave (21-13, 21-12). 

Once the scores were added up and handicap applied Alsager won by 28 points which works out at 1.5 points a game. A very good handicapping effort. Alsager progress to the Quarter Finals in February. Scoresheet attached.