Whitewashed on the road as depleted A team no match for league leaders
A depleted Shrewsbury A were no match for early league leaders Newport A, crashing to a 5-0 defeat on a chastening night on their travels.
A chronic availability shortage meant Dan Lockett’s side were only able to field four players. Things didn’t get any better over the board, as Newport’s superior class shone through and saw them win every game, writes Peter Kitchen.
The result leaves Shrewsbury A in the lower half of the Shropshire Chess League division one table – and in need of a response when they return to Newport Royal British Legion Club next week to take on newly-promoted Newport Junior A.
It was a tough night for the club – the C team was also playing at the same venue as part of another double header and went down 3.5-0.5 to Newport B.
Dan Lockett was forced into several changes for last week’s trip – Peter Kitchen was unavailable following his exploits at the 4NCL barely 48 hours earlier, while Olusegun Ilesanmi and Shane Greenwood were also not able to play. It meant B team players David Edwards and Ivor Salter again had to step in for the A team – this time on boards three and four, with Edwards moving up two boards to play on board three.
It was Edwards who again performed admirably against a technically much stronger player. This time he gave Ian Jamieson – a solid player who is well established at division one level and rated almost 300 points above Edwards – a tough game before missing a tactical opportunity to equalise in a complex ending and losing shortly afterwards.
Move 49 for white in the diagram, sees an opportunity to do this. What should white play?
Salter lost with the black pieces against one of Newport’s promising juniors Muhammad Qadri on board four, and Mark Smith was outplayed by David Lord on board two.
That left Lockett trying to avert the whitewash in the final game to finish on top board, but despite competing strongly against Chris Lewis, he was eventually ground down and fell to a defeat.
Speaking afterwards, Smith described it as a “tough old night” for both the A and C teams. He said: “It was no-one’s fault but the A team was missing too many people. All of us fought hard, but defending for long periods is I think one of the hardest things to do in chess – I got ground down and I think a lot of the games looked similar.”
Skipper Lockett praised Edwards and Salter for again stepping in, and praised Edwards for giving Jamieson a very close game.
Despite Shrewsbury being the designated home team for Tuesday’s match, league rules state that junior teams play all their matches at their home venue (unless playing another junior team). This means Shrewsbury will have black on odd boards.
Lockett will hope to welcome back at least some of the players who missed the Newport A match and will also look for his side to regain the competitive edge that saw them pick up a win and a narrow defeat in their opening two matches.
Full scores (Shrewsbury colours in brackets):
Newport A 5-0 Shrewsbury A
1.Chris Lewis 1-0 Dan Lockett (w)
2.David Lord 1-0 Mark Smith (b)
3.Ian Jamieson 1-0 David Edwards (w)
4.Muhammad Qadri 1-0 Ivor Salter (b)
5.Danny Griffiths 1-0 default
Average ratings – Newport A: 1808 ECF; Shrewsbury A: 1650 ECF