Colebridge Pasties and newcomers JLM Falcons have made the early running after the opening round of matches in the new 2017-18 campaign. Tom Shortley, Mike Credland and debutant Herman Klein were on form enabling Pasties to inflict the whitewash upon their hosts Henley A. However Peter Quince was unlucky not to earn a consolation win after taking the lead against both Credland and Klein, only to lose to each over the full distance.

It was a similar result at FISSC where perfect performances from Luke Moffat, Stef Mytton and Kevin Taylor gave Falcons maximum points. In the closest encounter of the evening the Farmers’ Mark Jones came within a whisker of gaining some reward for his team before being defeated 13-15 in the decider by Taylor.

It was a much more competitive fixture when Henley B entertained Shottery B and claimed three of the four games to be settled in the fifth set to secure a 7-3 victory. The visitors were probably optimistic of gaining a result when Tim Fell and Gareth Hepworth posted an early lead after overcoming initial deficits to defeat Stuart Latham-Marr and Dave Milton respectively. However their team were only able to add one more success when Hepworth added to his haul with victory over Robert McCluskey. Visiting captain Fell was unable to capitalise on productive starts and finished on the wrong end of a a trio of contests to go to the wire. He lost out in similar manner to both McCluskey and Milton and in the doubles, whilst all three Henley players went home with braces.