15 Sep 2007 - Premier team nearly there

 

The fourth of the five Premier galas saw us back up at Perth where we had enjoyed the narrowest of victories earlier in the season.

 

Mathematically a win would not ensure us of the Premier League title but it would make things a great deal more comfortable.

 

After the first two galas being extremely tight we had a more comfortable 22 point win at the last gala and with a strong looking team (even with those that were swimming up) we travelled in confident mood.

 

However, we had a late call off which meant we could only field 7 of our 8 relay teams as there were no reserves to be called upon that late in the day.

 

First up was the medlay relays and even maximum points from our 11/12's and 15+ age groups still saw us trail Perth City Blues by three points. Forfar did well to edge ahead of St Thomas whilst Perth City Reds struggled with a few relay teams missing and brought up the rear.

 

Into the individual rounds and this would be where we would need to try and gain an advantage over Perth knowing we had a relay missing at the end of the gala. Our 13/14's chipped in with some valuable points in the opening individual round but even with this, Perth managed to stretch their lead to five points. St Thomas had managed to leapfrog Forfar who had a poor round in to third spot.

 

The 2nd of the individual rounds saw us stay that five points adrift and at this point Perth were asking some serious questions as to whether we could dig deep and turn things round.

 

In the 3rd of the individual rounds we had four wins to Perth Blues solitary win which saw us close the gap back to three points.

 

The final round of the individuals again saw us with four wins to Perth's three and we had actually managed to take a slender one point lead. St Thomas had strengthened their lead over Forfar for third although Forfar would have fancied that they would still be in with a shout having been stronger in the earlier relays.

 

Into the free relays at the end of the gala and we were lucky to have our one relay team diadvantage cancelled out by a relay infringement by one of the Perth teams which evened things out. Perth were not going to give up this one easily and fought for every available point. Three wins for them in the middle of the round saw things dead level with the two senior realys to go.

We needed to make sure that there was no doubt about any of the starts or changeovers and we duly did this to again pip perth to the winning post.

 

Forfar did put up a fight for third place and ate into the St Thomas advantage, but it was just too much to ask and St Thomas will have been happy in taking three points down the road to Arbroath.

 

Let's not forget Perth City Reds who fought hard all night and never gave up the chase but with the points going the way they did, it will be a season back in the 1st Division for them next year.

 

Full result

1st     DCA                              192 (5 points)

2nd    Perth City Blues            190 (4)

3rd    St Thomas                    123 (3)

4th     Forfar Falcons             118 (2)

5th     Perth City Reds              67 (1)

 

League positions after 4 galas

1st    DCA                               20 points

2nd    Perth City Blues            16

3rd    Forfar Falcons              10

3rd    St Thomas                     10

5th    Perth City Reds               4