West Lothian thrash Fife to return to winning ways in Scottish Cities and Counties bowls championship

Jun 2 2011 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

WEST Lothian bounced back to winning form in the East section of the Scottish Cities and Counties bowls championship with a commanding 34 shot away victory (139-105) over Fife at Buckhaven, writes Stewart Meikle.

And a pleasing aspect for team manager Colin Stein was that last season’s section champions produced wins on five of the six rinks to make it an encouraging response to their previous match defeat from Midlothian.

The only downside for Stein came with the third defeat in a row for the rink skipped by Gary Smith.

Scotland cap Grant Logan was a major contributor to the West Lothian triumph along with fellow winning skips John Aitken, Raymond Logan, Thomas Mann, and Neil Speirs.

West Lothian made an encouraging start on an away green to capture the first 7-end phase, 43-32 then turned up the heat on the home side with a 49-34 success on the second before completing their domination with a 37-39 return on the third.

Aitken trailed 9-3 after eight ends to James Forbes but recovered brilliantly to skip Bryan Cooper Kenny Black and Calum Logan to a 25-11 win that was the highest of the match.

The major highlight for Aitken and company came with a 12-end purple patch spell that yielded 22 shots for the loss of 1 to cross into a 25-10 lead.

Logan (Grant) slipped from 7-0 up to 10-7 down then recovered with a five end blitz of 2, 2, 5, 1, 4 to lead 21-10 and went on to skip Mark Allison Andrew Dunnett and Blair Mackie to a 31-18 win over Andrew Pearson.

Logan (Raymond) sandwiched an early 5 and a late 6 with an electric run of 2, 2, 4, 4 as he skipped Ewan Shearer Greg Logan and Steven Fleming to a 27-16 win over Dave Comrie.

Mann skipped Frazer Muirhead Walter McDougall and Alec Allan into a 10-2 lead but was crossed 18-17 before conjuring up a magic 4, (1), 3 finish to triumph 24-19 over Wayne Hogg.

Speirs edged into a 17-15 lead with a mighty count of 5 at the 18th end then he battled on to skip Steven Forrest James Speirs Jr and Sandy McDougall to a 19-17 win over C Young.

Smith and his front -three of Stewart mcMaster Gary Orr and George Sneddon made a great 4, 1 start but failed to sustain that level in a 24-13 defeat from Gary Mackie

Elsewhere, East Lothian completed an opening hat-trick of wins with a 142-105 win over Stirling County East at Camelon but Edinburgh and Leith nosedived with a damaging 134-118 defeat from Borders.

Midlothian’s win over West Lothian the previous week failed to inspire last season’s national finalists and they suffered a shock 119-117 defeat from West Fife at Gorebridge.

East Lothian top the section with six points followed by West Lothian, West Fife, and Borders on four, then E&L, Stirling East, and Midlothian on two. Fife hold up the table with zero points.

The West Lothian banner will be on parade in the final stages of the Ceramic Tile Warehouse sponsored Inter County Top Ten tournament at Eddlewood on Sunday June 12 but Kirkliston got the fright of their lives before making it by a single shot.

Campbeltown of Argyll and Bute provided the opposition to the West Lothian champions.

However the national champions of 1989 and 2001 were held to a 4-4 share of the points.

Yet Kirkliston had made a fantastic start with spearhead figure Raymond Logan in brilliant form.

Neil Speirs added 1, 1, 4 to skip Steven Forrest into a 13-5 lead in the pairs but what looked like easy street became a battle to maintain supremacy and their 16-15 survival saw them finish with sweat on the brow.

Meanwhile Campbeltown were fighting like tigers in the fours and a mighty count of 5 at the 15th end and a 4 to finish on the 17th saw them inflict 21-16 damage on Andrew Suddon Gordon Logan Greg Logan and Grant Logan.

And pending disaster for Kirkliston in the triples saw David Masterton Calum Logan and John Aitken having a miserable time of it at 18-8 down entering the last, and facing the pressure of a 61-61 match aggregate.

A single for the visitors would gain them the scalp of the tournament favourites and they did dominate the built up of that final head however Kirkliston produced a hero in the shape of junior cap Calum Logan.

Logan’s instruction from Aitken was to ‘ditch the jack’ and the 22-year-old did so with unerring accuracy and although his shot bowl lay at a beatable distance it survived to be a spectacular match-winner.

West Lothian completed their section campaign in the Under 25 Scottish League Cup with a 147-100 win over Renfrewshire at Charelston in Paisley.