A TRIO of Braintree Bowmen youngsters all made trips to the podium with some fantastic form at the Junior Essex Outdoor Archery Championships at Noak Hill.

Tyler Birch, Sydney Strugnell and Imogen Newby all secured top-three places to keep the club's strong record going at the county event.

Strugnell admitted that she took time to settle at the 30-yard distance and included several scores of seven, a five and a miss in her list, so she knew she needed to up her game as the competition headed into the 20 and ten-yard distances.

Despite still not feeling at her best, the Braintree archer turned it around to record a new personal best (PB) of 1,209 and a third-place finish.

Meanwhile, Birch was coming into the Essex Championships having won silver at his previous open competition so he knew he was in good form.

He entered the Bristol IV, shooting at 40 yards, which was hit and miss for the novice archer and after settling down, he hit several golds.

At 30 yards, Birch shot the best he had ever done and closed the gap on those above him before the final distance at 20 yards when he closed his day with a new PB, a Braintree club record and the bronze medal in the under-12 boys' category.

Newby was also aiming for a good day as she looked to defend the Essex title that she claimed last year and she was also looking to secure the National Record for the Bristol V round.

The form of some of her rivals set Newby back and she admitted that she struggled to concentrate on her own game in the early stages as chances of the national record receded.

However, with the pressure of that out of the way, she relaxed and cruised to another county crown.

Newby said: "With the pressure off, I shot a perfect end of nines - then another and didn’t drop my end score below 50 points for the rest of the 30 yards.

"Then 20 yards and ten yards were flawless.

"They were all nines and I ended up winning the Essex Championships for the second year running with a new PB, club and county record."