BOWLS: Second round defeat for Melville four at the Nationals

The ladies enjoyed wins in the preliminary and first rounds, but lost in the second to a four from Stowmarket.

In the preliminary round they four beat Mary Day, Barbara Hornby, Judy Moore and Rita George of Adastra BC in Sussex 27-9.

The first round match saw the Melville quartet claim an equally emphatic 24-12 win over Elizabeth Boaden, Susan Macdowell, Jean Allen and Shelagh Carter of Hexham Alvaston BC from Northumberland. In the second round, Victoria, Elaine, Sandra and Pat came up against Shirley Plummer, Jill Lambert, Annette Baison and Carol Wright from Rookery BC.

The Northants rink lost the first two ends by single shots, and then collected a four to take the lead, only to see their lead disappear after five ends as they trailed 64.

The next two ends saw the Suffolk players pick up six shots without reply to lead by eight, but the next five ends were all in the Whyte Melville rink’s favour as they picked up 10 shots without reply to take a two shots lead at 14-12.

Unfortunately their lead disappeared in two more ends as they dropped one shot behind with seven ends left to play.

They then got stuck on 14 shots whilst their opponents eased to 22, and although they picked up three of the eight shots deficit, with just one end left it was a hard ask, and the Suffolk rink collected one shot on that last end.

Midland Counties title woe for Northants

Northants Men missed out on the Midland Counties Championship title by just three points after they won their final group match against Nottinghamshire at Newark Northern BC.

The County went into the game knowing they required 21 points to take the title from Leicestershire, and they very nearly managed it, but they could only win by 18 points and the title evaded them.

The County were in control for 90 per cent of the match and at 19 ends were 13 shots up, and with six winning rinks across the green.

The 20th end for all six rinks was not favourable as each rink dropped one or two shots, but at that stage the County still had four winning rinks and two tied, so, with one end to play it was still possible to get the required points.

However with one end of play across the rinks one of the tying rinks conceded one shot with another rink already laying two or three shots down unfortunately conceding a seven while attempting to kill the head.

The rink that conceded the large score on the last end had been 5-16 shots down at 10 ends of play and but they clawed their way back to be 18-16 shots up after 18 ends, which in itself was a remarkable effort and illustrated the effort put in by the County to secure the title.

The final score was Northants 110 shots (18 points) Nottinghamshire 101 (4 points).

Rink scores, Notts skips only, as follows:

Rink 1:Danny Walker, Colin Barnes, Daniel Height & Vernon Gearey 16 – Dave Scott 14

Rink 2: Curtis Johnson, Peter Hoad, Chris Bland & Matt Pownall 18 – Aaron Lockhart 26

Rink 3: Keith Height, Ashley Linnell, Martin Gearey & Andrew Manton 20 – Jack Emmerson 12

Rink 4: Adam Brown, Jonathan Brown, Will Walker & Roger Tansley 22 – Duncan Robinson 14

Rink 5: David Love, David Walker, Alan Ashby & Jamie Walker 17 – Mike Owen 16

Rink 6: Tony O’Leary, John Freeman, Richard Lemon & Callum Height 17 – Shane Overton 19

Leicestershire too strong for County

Northants men took on Leicestershire in a friendly at Thrapston BC and were beaten 122-109.

Despite having three winning rinks and one tied, the two losing rinks did so by enough shots to give Leicestershire the win by 13 shots.

The highest scoring of the County’s rinks was that skipped by Richard Somerton with an advantage of six shots.

Rink details, Leicestershire skips only, as follows:

Rink 1: Don Scott, Stewart Laxton, Peter Kitchener & Reg Jones 17 – Howard Taylor 17

Rink 2: Laurie Harrison, Richard Horrell, Barry Melville & John Cooper 20 – Gavin Bryson 17

Rink 3: Peter Hoad, George Donegan, Andrew Burrows & Malc Mattinson 21 – David Ward 17

Rink 4: Ray Ward, John Chester, Robin Frost & Colin Barnes 14 – John Jenkins 30

Rink 5: Trevor Tilley, Mick Galloway, Ray Gray & David Jones 14 – George Sim 24

Rink 6: Chris Gray, Tony Warren, Geoff Allen & Richard Somerton 23 – Terry Whiteside 17