England have huge lead after first weekend of Camrose

England raced to a huge lead on the first weekend of the Camrose Trophy in Ireland, winning all five matches, and only once scoring less than 18 VPs.

Congratulations to the team for an excellent result: Alexander Allfrey & Andrew Robson; Mike Bell & David Gold; David Bakhshi & Tony Forrester; NPC: David Burn; Asst NPC: Nick Smith.

The event started on Friday evening, and England hit the ground running with an 18.05-1.95 victory over Northern Ireland. A big win against Wales (19.25), and a narrower victory over the WBU (11.07) - who as hosts of the second weekend the WBU enter two teams - followed. 18.37 against Scotland and 18.61 against Ireland rounded off a superb weekend for the team.

The dominance of the team, and the contribution that all players made, is shown by the cross-imp rankings, in which the three English pairs fill the top three places, and are a large distance ahead of the other pairs.

England take a lead of 37 VPs in to the second weekend - the largest lead since the format was changed in 2005. Only 11 VPs covering the remaining teams there may be quite a battle for the minor places - or will one emerge from the pack to challenge England? The final weekend takes place in Wales on 4th to 6th March, so we'll find out then.

January 11, 2016