Goole Town 2's are well and truly in a relegation battle after a batting collapse of immense proportions on Saturday at Westfield. Having had high hopes of 30 points against their fellow strugglers in Division Two, Goole collapsed from 91-5 to 99 all out to fall to a defeat that now leaves the 2nds 16 points adrift of survival.

Having lost the toss Goole fielded first and had initial success as opener Cook top edged a pull shot to Declan Eastwood from the bowling of Mainds for 10. Padmore and Howard looked to rebuild the innings and did just that with a 77 run partnership to take Scarborough to 95-2. Goole were not overly concerned with this as the partnership came in 27 overs and with only 10 overs remaining Goole were confident of holding the seasiders to a manageable total. Two wickets from Jason Greaves, one from Gibbins and a run out restricted Scarborough further to 134-5 and when Padmore was run out for 68, Goole felt that they were on top. A swashbuckling four overs brought Snowball and Pratt 37 runs to take Scarborough to 171-7, which looked a reasonable score after their early troubles in the middle overs.

Goole in reply started poorly as they lost Gibbins, Cooper and Mainds before they had reached 30 runs as the Scarborough openers Snowball and Graves swung the ball nicely. Eastwood and Rodgers rebuilt to take Goole to 47-4 but a bowling change to spin was immediately rewarded as Eastwood was trapped LBW by Precious for 23. Will O'Donnell and Rodgers continued the good work by scoring freely to take Goole to 91-5 but the end was nigh for Goole after Rodgers was LBW to the spin of Rutter for 22 and O'Donnell was caught by Snowball from Precious for 29. Goole lost Franks, Thomas, Earl and Louis Greaves for one run in total, all to the spin of Rutter and Precious. Jason Greaves was left stranded 7 not out as Goole slumped to 99 all out with 6 batsmen contributing only 2 runs to the innings. Spinners Precious (4-24) and Rutter (3-38) took the Goole innings apart and as happened earlier in the year against Yapham, spin was a killer blow to the 2's.

Having lost this crucial match Goole are now in the relegation zone and have it all to do to stay in Division Two. They face the bottom team Acomb on Saturday, which is now a must win match. Defeat could see Goole lose touch with Pickering and Scarbourough if results go against them and at this crucial point of the season they need to pickup at least three wins from the last 6 matches to be safe in Division Two.

On Sunday Goole 3rd XI travelled to Sutton on Hull CC. Goole batted first and got off to a terrible start as Guy Richardson was out second ball for nought. James Steels hit 37 to record his highest score in senior cricket and good contributions from Rodgers (35), Eastwood (30) took Goole to a good score in the middle overs. Jakey Kennedy then took Goole further with a blistering 62 from 37 balls to push Goole up to a defend-able score and the youngsters finished things off by making 194 all out from 39 overs.

Sutton in reply were pegged back to 58-3 with wickets from Rodgers (2) and Steele (1). Ollie Chappell and Sam Wood nipped in to take one wicket apiece and Thomas Marritt on debut bowled six excellent overs for 24 runs. At 128-6 in the 26th over Sutton were slight favourites, but Goole knew that they had a chance. Kennedy kept things quiet and took 4 wickets in the innings, but unfortunately for Goole the return of opener Roantree (39no), Graham (27) and Noble (32) was enough to see Sutton home and win by 1 wicket with 5 balls to spare. It was an excellent team performance again from the young team and with a little more work it's hoped that the teams first win of the season is not long away. The 3rds have no match this weekend but play Gilberdyke next on the 19th August.