Tough week for county bowlers

Feb 3 2011 West Lothian Courier

THE local challenge to make the national final stage of the Scottish Triples Championship at West Lothian IBC on April 2 and 3 failed to deliver in the playdown action of both the ladies and gents events at the weekend.

The Balbardie challenge in the gents championship looked strong in the hands of Davie Ross, Walter McDougall and Sandy McDougall and they did make a promising start to beat Bainfield proper at Lanarkshire IBC.

The Bainfield trio comprised experienced campaigners Graeme McIntiosh – reigning national outdoor triples champion – Stevie McLeod and Barry Hill, with McIntosh renewing rivalry with Ross and Sandy McDougall who scored a last-bowl victory over him in the 2009 final of the Scottish Outdoor Pairs.

McDougall once again held the upper hand and skipped his front two to an exciting 20-18 win in the first round proper, setting up a second round clash with Blantyre.

Blantyre came into the clash fired up by a runaway 20-6 win over West of Scotland and their high profile trio of Colin Irvine, Brian Irvine and Iain McLean continued the form to blitz McDougall and Co 23-4.

McLean then went on to skip Blantyre to a section final win at the 21-11 expense of East Lothian trio Dougie Mitchell, Alan Young and Jamie Higgins.

The West Lothian IBC banner was carried by dark horse trio George Marshall, Davie Anderson Jnr and Brian Holloran who gave a good opening account of themselves to beat Clydebank 22-14 in the prelim round at Bainfield.

The first round proper saw WL faced with a much tougher test against Ralph Nicholson, Neil McNally and Alistair White of Tweedbank and the Border trio showed their class with a 22-6 victory.

Tweedbank then went on to beat East Fife, 18-15, and Perth, 14-13, to win their section final.

The semi-final line up at the Inveralmond stadium come April 2 features Tweedbank against Blantyre and Cumbernauld versus Stonehaven.

World stage figure Lorraine Malloy skipped Sharon Leitch and Kim Ross for Balbardie in the ladies championship and the trio made a flying start to crush East Kilbride, 31-9 in the prelim round at Lanarkshire.

But they met their match in the first round proper with Mandy O'Donnell, Anne Watson and Anna Anderson of Bainfield – boosted by a 37-3 win over Dumbarton – always just doing enough to beat Malloy and Co 22-17.

Bainfield then lost to 20-12 to Blantyre who went on to win the section honours at the 15-13 expense of Falkirk.

West Lothian IBC trio Jean Brown, Barbara Robertson and Jean Laidlaw made the short trip to Bainfield where they were sentenced to a quick return by their 15-12 defeat by Teviotdale in the prelim round.

Teviotdale then suffered a 23-3 drubbing from Headwell and at the end of the day it was the East Fife triple skipped by Celia Smith that won the section final at the 15-12 expense of Perth.

The semi-final line up at the Inveralmond stadium on April 2 features Blantyre against Auchinleck and Turriff against East Fife.

The final of the Seniors Singles at the WLIBC saw Brian Holloran in red-hot form to burn up the carpet at the Inveramond stadium and give luckless Bill Gorrie a 21-4 roasting in 18-ends.

The final of the Triples also turned out to be one-way-traffic when Alistair Lindsay, Stuart Orr and Ronnie Scott added a run of 1, 4, 4, 3, 1 that accelerated them to a 17-5 win over Bill Brown Eddie Gollan and Alex Murray.