It’s tough…at the bottom

Shrewsbury A briefly moved off the foot of the table with a vital 3-2 win over Newport Junior A – but captain Dan Lockett has warned that there are still “tough” challenges ahead if his side hopes to beat the drop.

Lockett, David Edwards and Ivor Salter all won to help the visitors come from behind against the Juniors after Stephen Priestley was impressively dismantled on board two by Waylon Chan, writes Peter Kitchen.

And despite Peter Kitchen seeing his 21-match unbeaten run spanning two weeks short of a full year come to end against Krish Thimmegowda on top board, it wasn’t enough to stop Shrewsbury claiming the points. They moved above Darwinian Knights A and level with Newport Junior A on points – although their two rivals have a game in hand against each other to play.

With two of the bottom three almost certain to finish in the relegation zone, Lockett is aware his side still have a lot of work to do as they face a crunch trip to relegation rivals Darwinian Knights A on April 14, before finishing the season away to a Telepost A side who have recently ended Newport A’s perfect run of 10 wins from 10 games with an eye-catching 3.5-1.5 win.

“I think it’ll be tough,” said Lockett. One of the sides we have to play sits near the top of the table, so if we can pick up a point or two from those matches we’ll be doing well.”

Shrewsbury did fare reasonably well in the reverse fixtures against Telepost, beating them at home.

But Lockett was keen to take the positives from the Newport Junior game ahead of the run-in.

“Clearly it was great to get the points from that one (the Newport Junior A game),” he said. “Again we were without two or three unavailable players with Mark Smith on holiday and Olusegun Ilesanmi and Shane Greenwood unavailable through work – but David and Ivor stepped in nicely to secure the win.

“Stephen had a difficult game against one of the rapidly-rising juniors, and my opponent played the opening well but allowed me to win a pawn on b7 with my queen and I ended up material.

“At the end I almost managed to checkmate him with two knights, but he saw it and gave up a rook for one of them – I had to force mate with the queen instead.”

After Lockett’s win, Edwards put the visitors ahead for the first time with victory over Anthony Hooper on board four.

But Shrewsbury were pegged back when Kitchen heartbreakingly lost his long unbeaten run. Having been prepared for Thimmegowda’s Elephant Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5!?) on board one, Kitchen secured a far superior middlegame with his two minor pieces looking much stroinger than his opponent’s rook and pawn.

But he made an uncharacteristic tactical error that saw him return the minor pieces for the rook – and finish in an endgame a clear pawn down, which the Newport teenager convincingly converted.

Kitchen’s unbeaten run included 10 Shropshire Chess League matches, and across all competitions he had won eight and drawn 13 games since losing to Oswestry’s Richard Bryant in April last year.

Nevertheless, Shrewsbury were not to be denied. Ivor Salter patiently built up a superior position against Malcolm Price on bottom board – and facing two connected queenside passed pawns in the ending, Price resigned to hand Shrewsbury victory.

Full scores (Shrewsbury colours in brackets):

Newport Junior A 2-3 Shrewsbury A

1.Krish Thimmegowda 1-0 Peter Kitchen (w)

2.Waylon Chan 1-0 Stephen Priestley (b)

3.Mohanaditya Poluru 0-1 Dan Lockett (w)

4.Anthony Hooper 0-1 David Edwards (b)

5.Malcolm Price 0-1 Ivor Salter (w) Average ratings: Newport Junior A 1652ECF; Shrewsbury A 1686ECF