Having completed the first half of the season’s League fixtures, clubs have now turned their attention to the two Cup Competitions.

The first rounds of both the Concorde Trophy and FD Logistics Cup are under way and while there have been few real surprises, in the FDL Cup, New North Road Baptist B gave a really good account of themselves in keeping a strong Kingsmith A team to just a nine-point winning margin.

The match was nip and tuck throughout with the losers’ trio of Oliver Grant, Matt Barber and David Atherton doing well to take Geoff Dunne, Phil Schofield and Steve Hanson so close.

NNRB A team did equally well to beat an admittedly weakened Scissett WMC A by 23 points.

Best performance of the round so far has been Deighton D team’s narrow 11-point win over a strong Kingsmith D team, currently nurturing thoughts of promotion to the top flight after a strong first half of the season.

Their trio of Sebastien Frere, Peter Haywood and David Arnold met their match against young Marcus Matthews, Naila Malik and Godfrey Gabriel. Kingsmith were giving away handicaps of 5, 6 and 7 points per game, contested to 21 up, and this proved just too much.

Full credit to the Deighton players, all of whom are showing marked improvement this season and may not enjoy such generous handicaps for much longer.

Wilshaw teams had mixed fortunes with Ash and Elm both progressing against Marsh D and Wilshaw Fir respectively.

However Wilshaw Beech came up against a strong Kingsmith B team which included Chinese star Tony Hou and, back from university, an impressive Harry Ness as well as Alex Beresford.

Kingsmith were comfortable winners in this preliminary round clash, earning a tie with Marsh A.

In the other preliminary tie, Deighton B earned the right to meet their own A team by narrowly beating David Brown A by just 12 points.

In the Concorde Trophy, finger nails remained intact as winning margins were generally quite comfortable.

Deighton E came within 18 points of upsetting their Polish clubmates from the A team, but there were defeats for Deighton B at Kingsmith A by 75 points and Deighton D away to Wishaw Elm by 45.

However, Deighton C hastened David Brown A’s exit from both competitions at the first hurdle with a 28-point cushion.

Another side to depart early from both competitions was Wilshaw Beech, who found Scissett WMC B’s handicap too much and went down by over 50 points. Scissett A also went through, beating Marsh Con C by 34 points

U3A turned out an unfamiliar trio of Jim Baxter, John Schoolar and Alan Shaw, hoping for support from the handicappers in overcoming Kingsmith B. They made a reasonable fist of it but lost by 31 points in the end.

Wins too for Wilshaw Ash at Marsh D, Fountain Of Youth at Wilshaw Fir and Kingsmith C at NNRBC B.

A few matches have still to be played but clubs have until December 31 to complete them.