Sylvans closing in on 10th championship

SYLVANS took a giant leap towards winning a 10th successive Priaulx League title this weekend. The westerners hammered Rovers 8-0 on Saturday, while their championship rivals Northerners and Vale Rec. drew 1-1 in yesterday's northern derby.

Sylvans have now dropped 11 points, North 15 and Vale 16.

Rovers coach Graham Hockey warned the pretenders to Sylvans' throne that the champions are untouchable and Vale boss Ray Blondel agreed that the westerners are now within touching distance of the title.

But North director of football Alan Le Prevost disagreed.

After watching his side come back from a Danny Bisson goal down to equalise and force a draw courtesy of Jon Veron, Le Prevost said the championship 'was still very much alive'.

'The results this weekend have put the ball back in Sylvans' court, but we'll carry on and it's not over by a long way.

'I still believe it's a fight between North and Sylvans,' said the former island coach.

'Vale only attacked once in the second half and scored with a big deflection. After we equalised, we were the only team that looked like winning. But it's the same old problem - we couldn't take our chances and stick the ball in the net.'

Vale were the better side for the first hour, but Blondel said that North 'would have felt hard done by' had the green-and-yellows won.

'I said after Wednesday that we were out of the league. I stick by that, but we're doing okay considering all of the players that we're missing.

'At the start of the game I turned around and saw Malcolm Symons, Matt Falla, David MacNab, Craig Tyrrell, Mark Elliott, Andy Chamberlain and Jon Eley standing behind me and not playing.

'The way we're playing at the moment augurs well because when we get those lads back we should be a fairly decent side.

'A draw was probably a fair result. We didn't really give their goalkeeper enough to do in the second half.'

*Paul Nobes scored on his comeback for the Sylvans Jackson team yesterday.