REDRICE Health & Fitness women's first team made a good start to the new season with a 4-1 home victory against Alton Physicals but in their second match were beaten 4-1 away by the Avenue Club's second string.

Sponsored by Oakwood Shopfitting, the first team have Oakwood director Steve Smith refereeing the team's home matches this season.

Fielding an unchanged team from last season, Redrice are hoping to improve on last season's mid-table position and were delighted with their first outing with Angela Riggs, Jill Hall and team captain Ros Hursell all winning comfortably 3-0. Debbie Smith let slip the second game in her 3-1 victory but Karen Sturges had an 'up-and-down' match and was beaten 3-1.

Redrice sorely missed team captain Ros Hursell in their second outing. Angela Riggs, Jill Hall and Karen Sturges all moved up in the playing order but found it a step too far as they all lost 3-0. Debbie Smith relished the chance of playing at No 1 and went down fighting 3-2 while Linda Hydes at No 5 recorded the only Redrice victory with a 3-1 triumph.

For the newly promoted women's second team it was a case of third time lucky with the Powerflo Systems sponsored team beating Milford 4-1 at home after going down by the same margin in their opening two matches against Moonrakers and Totton but the following week the team was back on the steep learning curve as they crashed 5-0 away to Fitness First.

A good start was made against the Salisbury club with Sally Biles winning 3-0 at No 4 but that was the only success of the night as team captain Sharon Dyke and Debby Duffy both went down 3-1, although both played well against slighty stronger opponents, while in the remaining two matches Lori Channon and Linda Hydes both lost tough five setters.

The away game at Totton brought a similar result with Sally Biles again winning 3-0 to give the team their only success. Lori Channon took her match to the final set but again came out second best, team captain Sharon Dyke improved with each game but lost 3-0, as did Angela Riggs and Debbie Duffy in their respective matches.

Team success however came as the third time of asking with victory over Milford. Chrissie Lindley, playing her first match of the season, made short work of her opponent in straight games, Sharon Dyke's hard-hitting style proved too much for her opponent for another 3-0 win and Sally Biles made it three wins out of three without dropping a game.

Linda Hydes returned to the team after missing the previous match but lost 3-0 while Lori Channon produced the match of the evening as she came back to win after losing the first two games, winning the final game 9-2.

The whitewash by Fitness First resulted in Sally Biles losing her 100 per cent record but picked up the only game for the team in a 3-1 defeat. The other members of the team, Linda Hydes, Debbie Duffy, Lori Channon and Sharon Dyke all lost 3-0 against a very good home side.