On a dismal night when only one player beat his opponent (although three did manage a tie), Hustlers crashed out of the cup by a margin of 34 pins.First leg started the game well, with top score Lloyd flooring 42 and pulling an impressive 11 pins on his opponent to give Hustlers a lead of 10 pins.
Second leg, led by John with the only other 40 of the night, scored exactly the same number of pins as the first leg and almost held Merryboys, losing a mere 2 pins to the opposition.
Third leg was a catastrophe, with neither Swayner nor Andy managing to break 30 and, against what turned out to be Merryboys’ best leg, lost 32 pins between them.
This gave last leg a not inconsiderable margin of 24 pins to make up and, with little incentive, they lost a further 10 pins to finish the game 34 short of making the next round.
| Away vs Merry Boys 1 Nov 17 – Lost by 34 | |||||||||
| Place | Player | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Total | V man! |
| 1 | Neil | 6 | 6 | 1 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 38 | -1 |
| 2 | Lloyd | 8 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 42 | 11 |
| 3 | Dave | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 35 | 0 |
| Leg | 20 | 19 | 13 | 24 | 20 | 19 | 115 | 10 | |
| 4 | Pete | 5 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 6 | 38 | -1 |
| 5 | John | 5 | 9 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 40 | -1 |
| 6 | Brian | 1 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 37 | 0 |
| Leg | 11 | 21 | 18 | 21 | 21 | 23 | 115 | -2 | |
| 7 | Swayner | 5 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 26 | -7 |
| 8 | Rich | 6 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 36 | -7 |
| 9 | Andy | 6 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 25 | -18 |
| Leg | 17 | 11 | 14 | 15 | 17 | 13 | 87 | -32 | |
| 10 | Anthony | 4 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 30 | -8 |
| 11 | Gary | 7 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 36 | 0 |
| 12 | Rob | 6 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 39 | -2 |
| Leg | 17 | 21 | 17 | 24 | 17 | 9 | 105 | -10 | |