THURSDAY, October 24 and Friday 25 sees the first round of the Ken Bright Cup in the Wellington Ex-Services Skittles League.

This season, the competition will consist of teams who have been knocked out in the first round of the Payne Cup or in the second round, if the match involved a team who had received a bye.

The competition looks to be very strong this year as, thanks to their surprise early-round defeats, teams such as Mowers, Holywell Lake and Cottage Pies are all involved. Last season's winners and runners-up, Scuppas and Ex-Servicemen respectively, will not be involved in this season's competition due to their continued progress in the Payne Cup.

First-round fixtures are as follows.

On the Thursday: Hot Shots vs King Pins (at the Victoria Arms), Report Centre A vs Mowers (at the Rockwell Green Institute), Here 4 the Beer vs United Services (at the Football Club) and Oaks vs Outsiders (at the The White Horse, Bradford on Tone).

On the Friday: Club Rockers vs Home Guard II (at the Cottage Inn), Cottage Pie vs All Stars (at the Nynehead Memorial Club), Relyon vs Foresters (at the Victoria Arms) and Rebels vs Holywell Lake (at the Football Club).

All first round fixtures are scheduled to commence at 20:15 and the draw can be found here via this link, KB Cup first round draw.

The scoring system remains the same and is described below.

Each team will play three hands at a time. The team who hit the highest overall score will be awarded two points, should these scores be tied, then each team will be awarded a point apiece.

Each hand is worth two bonus points to the team who hits the most pins in the hand, should a hand be tied, then each team will be awarded a point apiece.

The team with the highest amount of points at the end of the match shall be declared the winner and progress to the next stage or be declared competition winners as applicable to the stage of the competition. If the points are tied at the end of the six hands, then the team with highest overall score shall be declared the winner, if the overall scores are level then an extra hand or hands shall be played to determine the winner.

As previously mentioned, the Ken Bright Cup final pitted the Scuppas and the Ex-Servicemen against each other.

In an exciting last match in Group A, Ex-Servicemen beat Mowers to qualify on pins difference while Scuppas were outright winners of Group B.

It was the Scuppers that came out on top last season but with neither of these teams competing this time around, the title will have to be handed over to a different group.

Pictured are the winning Scuppers: Adrian Newstead, John Barker, Craig Newstead, Dave Squire, Nick Payne, Nigel Symonds; front: Roger Howe (vice-captain), Chris Morter (captain).