Published 20/10/2017 at 12:47:29 by David Wackrill.

PREMIER
I raved about my old team MK Sasaki pulling off the 'double ’within the very first fortnight against the teams that have dominated the League for the past 7 years (Greenley Monarchs and MK Spinners), but perhaps this will become the ‘norm’ this year as MK Bandits have now followed suit with a 6-4 win over Monarchs this week. And if Bandits can persuade Matt Evans to continue playing regularly they will be challenging for top spot, so some sweeping changes in the pecking order may be on the way. Mighty Matt got his treble as expected but the big surprise was him being joined by a career best hat-trick from Jamie Hendy (so no problem picking a ‘player of the week’ then). Dan Appanna, Tom Nowakowski and Ollie Horswell, playing up from Div.1, all blown away with some superb attacking guile. League champion Dan was the prize scalp, beaten 16-14 in the 5th of a thrilling and dramatic encounter according to James Tapp’s wonderful match report. I can’t do it any justice by paraphrasing his report here so please read for yourself, if interested, and many thanks for James’ input. Great to see the League’s best 3 young players all in action in the same match too.
 

Struggling Spinners called up Sarah Hudson from Div.1 this time round and she came close to a victory for them, just losing 11-9 in 5th to Mark Purcell. But Spinners won the match anyway, losing only one more set when Jason Tustain beat Gary Jones. Usual maximum for Alan Cherry, all in straight games.
 

Greenleys Kings look doomed to bottom place and possible relegation already as they went down 8-2 to leaders MK Sasaki. Ollie’s Warriors team-mate Olan Gabriel was needed for Kings yet again, to join Nick Howard and Guy Sparrow. Nick took a brace as did Dan Smalley and Kevin Choong for Sasaki, leaving Dakshin Subramanian the only man with a maximum.
 

Player of the week is Jamie Hendy.

Unchanged Greenleys Warriors continue to dominate the division while, oddly, still losing their doubles every week. This time it was bottom placed Chackmore Hasbeens who benefited from Warriors lack of expertise with a straight games win. But the only addition to Hasbeens score was a Chris Whitehead victory over Ricky Taiwo. A dozen wins in a row now for Olan Gabriel and another maximum for Ollie Horswell.
 

MK Topspin are back to 2nd after a 7-3 win at O.U. Primes. Patrick Wong was in good form for the home team, only denied by Topspin’s hat-trick man Mervyn Kelly. Mervyn showed some great form himself in doubling his hat-trick quota from the whole of last season and looks in terrific nick at the moment.
 

St.Christopher Van Hire went to Woburn Sands Data with 3 wins under their belt whilst the home team had started with 3 defeats. But both records were turned on their head as Data ran out 6-4 winners.  Data have struggled to field a team every week so far and turned to Andy Jenkins to help them out this time. The Div.3 man won a crucial set against Van Hire’s own substitute, Heather Wilcox from Div.5, to clinch victory. James Molloy scored a hat-trick while team-mate Rob McPheat joined Van Hire’s Fabrice Spelta on a brace with the visitors also maintaining their impressive unbeaten doubles record.
 

Results are looking up at last for MK Powers, who have now gone 2 weeks without defeat for the first time in 48 matches. This was all thanks to skipper Pete Tillotson blasting a hat-trick against Greenleys Eagles with a supporting brace from Minesh Pitamber in the only draw of the week. Eagles’ Geoff Callaway and James Zeng, up from from Div.2, joined Minesh on a brace each themselves.
 

 A 4th substitute ‘playing up’ in this week’s matches was Ivor Howard from Div.2 to fill in for MK Phoenix. His reward was a terrific win over MK Pumas’ Chris Belton. But the only other set Phoenix could muster was a victory from Carl Furness over Julie Snowdon as Pumas ran out 8-2 winners. Usual hat-trick for Andy Smith.
 

Player of the week is Pete Tillotson.