THE county colts, with six south-east Essex players in the eight-man team, lost their first South-East League match in five years when they were beaten 8-4 at Harleyford, near Marlow, by Berks, Bucks and Oxon.

A clash with the senior Essex team event for the Thornton Cup meant that the visitors were without a number of key players.

The foursomes were shared at 2-2 with the Thorpe Hall duo of Matt Southgate and Mark Talbot winning 2 up.

And the singles victories for Essex as they went down 6-2 for an overall 8-4 defeat came from Westley Wray (Three Rivers) 3 and 1 and Stefan Cox (Boyce Hill) 4 and 3.

At Rochford, Essex under-14s lost 10.5-4.5 to Herts.

Essex were pipped by Surrey, who won through to the finals at Westward Ho, and Suffolk in the South eastern Counties Boys Championship at Rookery Park, Lowestoft.

But Rochford's Joe Galbraith put forward a superb captain's performance which nearly captured the individual prize.

Essex regained the under-14 Four Counties Championship for the Keith Bass Trophy at Weston Park near Norwich.

This weekend sees the Essex Amateur Championship being staged at North Weald on Saturday and Sunday with 84 top golfers in action.

Four rounds will be played with presentations around 6pm Sunday. There is no admission charge.

>THORPE Hall's men competed for the first time for the Centenary Salver which was presented to the centenary winners last year.

The weather caused the two rounds to be eight weeks apart - April 4 and June - and the scores reflect the difference that the longer rough makes.

The best two scores were both from the April day and the winners were Dan Beverley and Alex Andrews on countback from Danny Goodrich and Matt Wall. Both pairs had 45 points.

In third place, from last weekend with 42 points, were David Peters and Len Rice.