MARKLAND Hill B registered their first points of the season with an unexpected, but well-worked, victory over an HRM A side for whom it was simply not their day. Not least, for once, Duncan McDermott's magic malfunctioned and the League's leading gilder of lilies was, temporarily reduced more to gelder than gilder as our hero imbued his shots with all the careful finesse of a harassed vet.

For Markland Hill skipper and spouse, Paul and Jean Henderson, did well just as did team mates, Kate Nightingale and Steve Pyatt. Henderson was in rampant form, picking up some eye-blinking half volleys as he moved inexorably to the net and volleying decisively. If he did not, unlike some, reveal his keenness with a continuous shower of spectator-drenching sweat, he nonetheless hurled himself round the court with Kamikaze disregard for personal safety.

If Mrs Henderson appeared to have a keener appreciation of the laws of risk, probability and insurance, she also played well, resilient on the baseline, delicately effective at the net and keeping an authoritative check on the more o'er-vaulting ambitions of partner, Steve Pyatt. He himself contributed heavily to the cause, partly by his solid, if occasionally aberrant ground strokes, but also by his big, easy-point-winning serve. Kate Nightingale made up the team and demonstrated an all-round game significantly improved in the close season! Good serve, good net play, good court speed and often smacking back McDermott's super-swinging serve with some disdain.

HRM had their moments, not least Lisa Gorse who orchestrated the rally of the match with a series of driven half-volleys at varying angles which reduced Pyatt to temporary rubble.

In a good weekend for Heaton, each Bolton School team registered a second successive win. The A team, with the effervescent, high-fives partnership of Dave Arruvee and Jo Crompton to the fore dismissed a below-par Walkers B side, while the B outfit accounted for their Holcombe Brook counterparts with appropriately hefty contributions from Allan Sharples and the more sylph-like Jill Pike.

Neither side, however, can ignore B who, this week, polished off a strong Eagley B side by a startling margin. Dave Thompson and the explosive Howard Ryding do the heavy stuff with ample assistance from Georgina Ryding who is already acquiring some of her husband's destructive techniques, and Nicky Rowan, long established as a shoot first, ask later exponent of the game.

Harwood notched their first victory against a Walkers C side temporarily in the doldrums and in doing so displayed the strength in depth of their ladies. Kate Whittle and Gill Entwistle turning out and turning in performances of all round ability -- a good range of shots and especially in Miss Entwistle's case, a healthily aggressive desire to camp on the net. Support came from the increasingly accomplished Andy Hibbert whose mixed results with Miss Entwistle did much to swing the match and captain Gary Cunliffe.

Bradshaw and Walmersley are setting the pace in Division Two, the former exhibiting a balanced side, with ironically their ladies providing the heavy artillery -- Carole Mitchell and Linda Tetik greeting opponents with a bravura display of blitzkrieg dimensions, while their male colleagues, David Boardman especially, are more inclined to wield the scalpel, skinning the opposition strip by deft strip. Walmersley have yet perhaps to reveal their full hand but may need it next week when they take on Gary Cunliffe's young pretenders. Dave Gerrard's results this week offered a distant rumble of what might be in store for them. RESULTS: Division Two: Bradshaw 35, Winter Hill 15; Harwood 27, Walker's C 24; Walmersley 33, Astley 20; Markland Hill 30, HRM A 26.

Division Three: HRM B 41, Eagley B 14; Bolton School A 36, Walker's B 24; Bolton School B 34, Holcombe Brook B 24; Guild Hall 32, Egerton 26.