THE Cheshire men's team's hopes of progressing to the semi-finals of this year’s county championship suffered a severe setback on Sunday when they fell to a 132-shot defeat to Shropshire, writes David O'Brien.

In the home leg at Beach House, Cheshire only recorded five winners with Glynn Cookson (21-18) among them.

At the away leg in Telford, only a win form Jason Cornes (21-13) stopped the team from suffering a whitewash.

Only an unexpected set of results in the third and final game would see Cheshire progress.

This Sunday the attention turns to the Mid Cheshire Federation team who face Airedale in their third game of the 2023 season.

The Mid Cheshire team currently sit on top of Division Three and a positive result could go a long way to securing promotion to Division Two.

The team have selected Comberbach as the home venue and the team selected is: Andy Gregory, Paul Drinkwater, Owen Cookson, John Gurney, James Gurney, Robert Winnington, Nick Hamman, James Eaton, Paul Farrington, Glyn Walton, Jack Bushell and Andy Hamman. The game starts at 2pm.

In the latest qualifying session at the Castle Sports Classic, Craig Jones (Middlewich RBL) and Adam Bishop progressed to the final day.

The third set of qualifiers take place on Saturday, 6pm start. In the field that evening is Greg Smith and Gerald Merry (Delamere).

Winners of the mixed pairs at Owley Wood on Saturday were Adam Penlington and Nicola Dolby who came through a field of over 40 entrants to take the first prize.

Wharton Cons B made it through to the semi-finals of the Cheshire County De Knoop Cup on Saturday via a narrow 179-173 victory over Owley Wood. They next face Houldsworth as they look to reach this year’s final.