ROYAL Wootton Bassett duo Dave Godwin and Steve Snell, who have already tasted success at Royal Leamington Spa in the national fours championship last week, went down on an extra end in their bid to add the pairs title to their collection on Tuesday.

The Bassett partnership lost on the 22nd and extra end 19-18 in the semi-final to Mark Jones and Mark Dunne from the West End club, Woking, Surrey.

The match was a tight affair throughout. The Bassett duo trailed 4-2 after five ends and 7-5 after 10, but had drawn level 7-7 on the 11th end.

They moved 10-7 up after 12 ends but were pegged back to 15-15 at 18.

Godwin and Snell dropped a three on the next to trail 18-15 after 19 ends but fought back to tie the game 1818 at 21 ends to force an extra end.

But then their luck ran out as their Surrey opponents scored a fortunate single to win 19-18 and book a place in the pairs championship final.

Lead Godwin and skip Steve Snell had successfully negotiated four previous rounds to book a spot in the last four.

They opened with a 28-18 win over Northumberland’s Colin Boyle and Gren Richardson (Portland, Newcastle) and followed it with a comfortable 27-14 victory over Kent’s Blackheath & Greenwich duo of Andrew Rodger and Perry Martin in the second round.

An even bigger win followed in the last 16 over Southbourne, Sussex as they beat Anthony Bull and Andy Smith 25-11.

Godwin and Snell then booked their semi-place with a hard fought 19-15 quarter-final win over West Witney duo Andy McIntyre and David Leighfield.

Elsewhere in the national championships, Bassett’s Neil Smith had a good run in the two-wood singles competition, winning three games before going out in the last 16 losing to Peter Wilkinson (County Arts, Norwich) 15-4, while Mel Biggs made a swift exit in the senior singles.

Godwin, a singles championship semi-finalist a couple of seasons ago, barely had any time for a rest after his pairs exploits as he was back out in the men’s singles championship.

He won his preliminary round match 21-13 against Totland Bay, Isle of Wight, player Bertie Everson and then eliminated Cornwall’s Mark Read (Stenalees, St Austell) 21-13.

But his run came to an end in round two, going down 21-14 to Vincent O’Neill (Middlesborough , Yorkshire).

The month-long national championships at Victoria Park draw to a close on Sunday afternoon.

It has been a highly successful four weeks for the Bassett club as they have scooped two men’s titles – fours championship and senior fours – as well as going close losing in the ladies junior pairs final, men’s pairs and family pairs.