Following last week's 18-0 walkover due to the late withdrawl of Club Diana 4, Northants 2nd team impressively beat the league leaders Daventry 4, by 4 rubbers to 1.

Northants 3rds will be pleased to note that the heating seems to have been fixed, however with the outside temperature at +1, the courts were certainly cold to start with.

Ruth Sleigh opened at 5, and despite giving her opponent Nigel Berriman a 5-0 start in the first game, managed to gain the upper hand, having game point, however Ruth could not hang on and lost the first 10-8 - unfortunately after that, Ruth never really got into the next two games and lost in straight games - all this despite having received a motivational talk on the way over from Mr Rhodes - nice one Pete !

Tim Arthur - sorry, the "I look cool" (his quote not mine) number 4, then gave Steve Wightman a run around - despite chasing everything down, Steve was unable to prevent Tim from winning in straight games - note to Tim - it's not cool managing to forget the name of your team mate !!

Pete Rhodes continued his unbeaten team form, winning in straight games 9-5, 9-6, 9-5 against Steve Loydall.

Earl Harrison in at 2, tried his usual effort in gaining value for money out of his match fee - despite quickly winning the first 9-3, it took some sledging from his own team mate to pull back a deficit to win the second 10-8 (Pete was getting hungry) - just to keep Pete waiting longer, Earl decided to give his opponent Antony Nesbitt an 1-8 headstart in the third game - again eventually triumphing 10-8 to wrap up a straight games victory.

This left the floor clear for Martin Thompson at 1 to push home the points advantage over Keith Morgan. In what was a noisy game (good natured) for the scorer, Martin lost the first 7-9. However after levelling, the pivotal game was the third, with both players having chances to close out the game - Martin eventually won 10-8. The momentum had swung and the following 9-0 scoreline closed out a good win.

It was suggested that maybe Martin's matchfee would be better used on a haircut !! - otherwise he will soon be consulting Mr Iles on choice of headband !

So a 15-4 points win, sees us move up to 1 point behind tonight's opponents and handily placed approaching mid-season.

No game next week - next up are Lings 3 at home on 8th December.