Dorset all but home and dry

THE Golden Mafia captain has conceded defeat to Dorset A in the race for the Premier One crown. Rick de Garis and his men went into the top- of-the-table clash between the sides trailing by five points having played a game more than their rivals and knew that a win was required to keep their title hopes alive.

However, Dorset overcame an early 0-2 deficit to run out 10-5 winners which all but guarantees them the honours.

'They played very well - we cannot have any complaints,' said de Garis.

'We did not take our opportunities and they did. Pool is a game where there is luck involved and they had a bit of luck, but in all honesty, they deserved the win.'

The encounter was not a classic, but that was hardly surprising considering what was at stake, though there were some fine individual performances.

'Lenny Bullock won all three of his frames and played very well for them. Dave Bullock also had a couple of very good clearances,' said de Garis, who won two of his frames for the Mafia, as did Martyn Desperques.

'It was not one of those particularly entertaining matches because we knew the importance of it.

'They had a little less pressure on them because they were already a few points ahead,' de Garis said.

'We felt we needed a big win to put us back in contention, although as things went on we would have been happy with a win of any kind.

'This has pretty much tied up the league for them and left us and Happy Landings battling for second. Dorset would have to do something very drastic to lose it from here.'

De Garis said he was frustrated with his side's league campaign.

'We are disappointed because this year, having signed up Martyn Desperques and with Ady Holley coming back after a season with another team, we did think that we were looking favourites for it.

'Three of us were in the top five of last season's rankings so we thought we had a good chance but it was just one of those seasons where we did not get the big wins against the lower teams consistently and we made too many silly mistakes.'