'No guts, no glory’ so the old saying goes, and that was certainly the situation that both Drennan Barnsley Blacks and Sensas Starlets found themselves in at the halfway stage of this year’s event.
After Saturday’s match, Barnsley had an outside shot at a medal, while Starlets needed a miraculous score to get themselves into the top three, meaning that both sides had to go for broke come Sunday.
And sadly, the gamble didn’t pay off, with Barnsley blowing out big style and Starlets only marginally improving on their day one score.
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The scores on the doors saw Barnsley in a final eleventh position, and Starlets in twentieth spot.
Barnsley’s charge didn’t actually get off to a bad start with 28 points scored on day one, but it was a bit of a disaster 24 hours later with a hefty 54 points delivering the coup de gras. For Starlets, it couldn't have got much worse with 51 points on Saturday. They improved to 47 on Sunday, but were still wet off where they hoped to be.
Top performers for Barnsley were James Dent, with an excellent eight points across the weekend, and five-times World Champ Alan Scotthorne with 14. England Youth star Josh Newman fared best for Starlets with 16 points.
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Italian side Lenza Emilia Trabucco took gold with 31 points, second going to Czechs Crazy Boys Maver on 44 and superior total weight. Bronze was picked up by Dutch outfit HSV De Karper Voerendaal Tinca who also scored 44 points.
“We had a decent day on Saturday with a consistent average score of five points per angler, which was not bad at all,” said Barnsley skipper Lee Kerry.
“Unfortunately, there were other teams who scored lower than us and, on Saturday night, we felt that we needed to get a sub-15-point score to get us a medal, and to do that, we needed to do something extreme and not rely on luck.
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“We decided to take all the joker out of our feed, giving ourselves more big-fish baits like maggots and casters to attack with bigger particles.
“In practice, we felt there were too many tiny fish in the venue that loved joker, so the decision was to feed bigger baits, but it didn’t pay off at all and we suffered. It was, though, an approach that was either going to score 15 or 50 points! To be honest, fourth place is the same as eleventh place for us – we go to win, not to get a pat on the back for making the top six.
“We’re a team that wants to be on the podium every time.”
RESULT: 1 Lenza Emilia Trabucco, 31pts; 2 Crazy Boys Maver, 44 (45-740); 3 HSV De Karper Voerendaal Tinca, 44 (40- 095); 4 MeO SRZ Povzsaska Byetrice, 48 (75-385); 5 Timar Mix Team, 48 (46-190); 6 CP La Molina, 50; 7 MaO SRZ Komarno Bartal Mix, 51; 8 SPP87, 73; 9 Robinson Team, 76; 10 Section Concours Gaule Lennoise, 81.
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