Sam Watts had a fine win in the 200m Pic: Ken Bray

Missing a number of athletes, Woodford Green’s men’s team produced a solid performance to finish fourth in their British Athletics League Premiership fixture at Barnet Copthall Stadium.

Woodford scored 272 points, seven ahead of Birchfield and 10 behind Newham & Essex Beagles, with Shaftesbury comfortable winners from Sale. Shaftesbury now lead the table with 15 points at the halfway point, with Woodford fourth on 10.5 points.

In a good all-round team performance with many athletes competing in more than one event, Sam Watts’ B string 200 metres victory stood out.

Woodford’s Tom Norman put together his best ever series in the discus event, but found that his 59.37 metres was only good enough for fifth. In the B, Chris Linque stepped in at short notice and his 47.09m placed him third.

Watts’ win was from lane seven in the B 200m in 21.57 seconds, faster than the winning time in the A event, where Jordan Kirby-Polidore was fifth with 21.92.

Not content with the 200m win, Watts finished third in the B 100m with 11.03 and later ran in both relays.

In the A 100m, Simeon Williamson was third with 10.67, while over 400m, Graham Hedman was third in the A event with 47.37, and in the B, Sylvester Juwe was also third with 47.77.

The 800m events also contributed good points with second places for Jon Cook and Oli Heeks in the A and B events respectively.

In the 1,500m, Tom Phillips was third in the A race and Alex Cornwell won the B with 3.58.70.

The steeplechase saw Woodford’s pairing of Ryan McKinlay and Tomas Pilbersek both placed fourth in their respective races.

There was a lack of runners available in the 110m hurdles which saw Francis Smith place sixth, with Alasdair Strange fifth in the B event, before taking sixth spot in his usual pole vault event.

He also gained useful points in finishing fourth in the B long jump, and seventh in the high jump.

Woodford were also missing their top hammer throwers forcing Peter Clarke to step up and he placed sixth.

The javelin, also hampered by the wind at times, saw Stuart Harvey fifth with 57.39m and Simon Bennett third in the B with 56.31m.

In the 4x100m relay they finished third despite Omololu Abiodun suffering cramp, while the 4x400m team also occupied third.