There were some interesting pairings (three-balls), notably the 'Junior' and 'Senior' versions of the Steele, Stafford and Sant families. The 'Junior' versions were in one group - Rob (Steele), Ben (Stafford) and Jack (Sant) and with a cumulative age of barely 50, they definately 'had the legs' on the trio of their respective parents. That did not mean though that the 'seniors' were not to challenge for the honours ....

Ben Stafford took the morning lead in the Howitt with a 69, one in front of Rob Steele and Simon Timmins (also a Maxstoke member) who had 70s. The the Nett Salver, home club North Warwickshire member Tom Wilson opened with a 66 and never looked back, adding a 69 in the afternoon for 135 and a five shot win.

In much worse weather, Rob Steele kept his hands on the Howitt Trophy with another sub par round, a 71 for 141 and a two stroke win from Ben Stafford who followed his 69 with a 74 for 143, and third was Timmins after another 74. Simon would also come third in the nett (140, beaten on count back by an excellent 68 from ... Bob Stafford.

That all meant two prizes to the 'juniors' and one to the 'seniors' - and nothing this day for the Sants. Jack though is to play for England later this month and can look forward to a place in a special group who are earmarked for more honours in 2005. Matt Cryer has already played for England but from Wednesday through Friday last week, he took part in the Home Internationals down at Royal St Georges as part of the 11 Man England team looking to defend their title.

It was not to be as Scotland (26.5 individual points and 2 match wins) beat England on individual points score (21.5 - 2 match wins) so whilst Matt would have been disappointed to not be part of the winning team, he must take some individual pride in what he accomplished with his contribution of 4 points out of a possible 6.

'Its been a really good week but absolutely knackering. I?ve played well all week bar yesterday against Scotland, in the singles.

'I didn't play badly then and I didn't play great - the ball was just out of position all the time, in some tricky spots (Day 2 - the heavy England loss to Scotland)

'Day 1 was really good, two points out of two. I played with James Crampton in the foursomes all week.

'It was just a massacre against Scotland. We were all shell shocked. Back in the team room we got a bit of a roasting so this morning (D3 - vs Wales) I went out thinking "I'll show you" then me and James played as well as we could and we lost 1down!

'This afternoon I was solid, really good for the first 9, and two up. The back nine I was absolutely gone, so tired - but I managed to hang on (Matt won 2up).

'On the 18th, he made a great escape from a fairway bunker to just next to the green. I hit 9 iron to 12ft from 180 yards.'

Matt goes to Italy this coming week to play in the Italian Amateur (including Eduardo Molinari - the new US Amateur Champion - quite possibly)