Inter-County Championship action saw Norfolk Premier facing Gloucestershire Premier in the quarter-finals at Daventry with both teams on the back of a six game winning run in the group stages. The last time they met in the knockouts Norfolk inflicted a heavy defeat on their opponents and Gloucestershire were determined to gain revenge but it was not to be. In the singles Jack Pye, (picture below) fresh from winning his first major SMPT title, opened with a 15-14 win against Olly Hipkiss before beating Ryan Knight 14-8. Gary Best added a 14-7 win against Hipkiss in the second half as Norfolk’s singles earned 8 points out of ten. The Norfolk rinks took the ten maximum points with Lewis Cranston, John Jarvis, Owen Cranston & Selwyn Goldsmith winning 13-10 & 19-7 while Jack Marshall, Bob Oatway, John Turner & Melly Woods won 14-8 & 15-7. Young Jack Marshall of Connaught impressed throughout with skip Woods referring to Marshall’s performance as awesome. In Goldsmith’s rink young County Council star Owen Cranston found himself named as number three for the first time and looked every inch a future Norfolk Premier team skip on the evidence of this showing. The triples were unbeaten with Lesley Crowe, Morgan Warnes & Simon Willies winning 13-8 & 15-9 while Mark Linsdell, Debs Sparham & Keith Cooke drew their first game 9-9 before winning their second 21-7 to earn nine points out of ten in this discipline. The only win for Norfolk in the pairs was a fantastic 24-2 win for Jason Woods & David Lamb but this was enough to earn the bonus points. The final score was 31-9 to Norfolk which left Gloucestershire licking their wounds yet again after being eliminated by Norfolk Premier. In the semi-finals Norfolk will play Dorset who were surprise winners against 2015 champions Hampshire. The other quarter-finals saw defending champions West Mids beat West Sussex while Cornwall defeated Essex Premier in a dramatic tie-break.
