SQUASH: A depleted Chester RUFC team pulled off a remarkable 4-1 away victory at Wigan to edge ever closer to second place.
Without any of their professionals available, Drewe Williams was brought in from the second team to play his second match of the season.
Flying out of the blocks, he raced into a 2-0 lead over Wigan's Mike McDonald. McDonald fought back and in a tense final game, Williams pulled out all the stops to edge it and put Chester one up.
Alistair Mutch, 17, was also playing only his second game for the firsts, but he was in devastating form against England Masters international Stuart Wardle, allowing him only four points in a demonstration of top quality squash.
Jonathan Davies gained revenge over Wigan's Ian Bradburn for last season's defeat against the same player, with a comprehensive 3-1 victory to clinch the match for Chester.
The icing on the cake was supplied by the evergreen Nick Gatward, playing top Lancashire player Nigel Willis.
He went 2-0 ahead but looked to be down and out when Willis brought it back to 2-2.
However, in a fifth set of high drama, Gatward battled and scampered to all corners of the court to edge it 10-8 and put Chester 4-0 up Wigan's Jordanian number one and top professional proved just too strong for Chester's captain, Jonathan Clark, to put Wigan on the board in a hard fought three-game victory.
Chester's second team performed extremely well before going down 4-1 at home to Preston. Graham Slatter produced the performance of the night to win 3-2 against Preston's Darren Vescovi, while Robbie Blair and John Thompson also picked up games.
