ALFRETON No 2 BACK FROM BRINK FOR GREAT HAT-TRICK

ALFRETON PALMER MOREWOOD No 2 Jaeger Trophy winners 21/22
L-R: Jamie Rowland, Kyle Ryde, Ben Monk, Kevin Rowland & Andrew Beardsley.

THE newly-elected T & M Motors League champions Alfreton Palmer Morewood No 2 took on third placed Crich Comrades No 2 in the final of the Jaeger Trophy play-offs recently at Matlock's Edgefold Club.
Graeme Wood opened up first for the Tramwaymen against recent OMYA Cup winner Ben Monk, and with the latter suffering from one of the worst run of the balls you could ever have the misfortune to see, coupled with some excellent potting from his opponent, it was the Crich cueman who took the spoils with a runaway 83-19 success.
Wood, formerly a regular player of Matlock Club, has surely enjoyed his best-ever season this year with 14 wins out of 17 matches in all competitions.
Jack Lowe was next out of the blocks for the underdogs and he raced 51-0 up against opponent Kyle Ryde until the latter stepped in with a classy 32 break to put him back into the contest.
However, Lowe eventually clipped in a thin blue and added the pink straight after to secure a 73-59 victory and defy a strong fightback.
It needed a rearguard action from the champs from here and Andrew Beardsley started the ball rolling with a very astute frame of measured matchplay and solid conversion as he overcame Dale Shaw 70-37 to pull one back.
Jamie Rowland took on Crich captain Ady Lowe in the next and in a largely scrappy frame, it was the Alfreton man who began to eke out an advantage towards the business end as his opponent was left needing all of the remaining four colours to prevail.
And incredibly, successive flukes on brown and then blue made this seem possible until a long range pink into the bottom pocket caught the jaws and Rowland stepped in to make it 2-2.
Alfreton now had the bit between their teeth and once again it was the Crich pairing of the two Lowes who needed the last three balls to win in the doubles leg as they trailed 53-39.
But Monk, partnering Kevin Rowland in the decider, engineered a quarter-ball clip on blue into the middle and then took the pink with the rest into a corner pocket to complete a fantastic hat-trick for the team to go with the aforementioned League championship and the Captains Cup team aggregate trophy from a couple of weeks earlier.

Jaeger Trophy play-off final: Alfreton Palmer Morewood No 2 3, Crich Comrades No 2 2 (at Edgefold Club, Matlock). Breaks: K Ryde 32.