Midlothian roar back from early fright to win PL opener

Midlothian recovered well from an early fright to launch their indoor bowls Premier League campaign with a 105-78-shot victory over newly-promoted Cumbernauld at The Dalkeith Stadium.
Colin Walker skipped his rink to victory for MidlothianColin Walker skipped his rink to victory for Midlothian
Colin Walker skipped his rink to victory for Midlothian

Cumbernauld stormed into an astonishing 25-4 lead after three ends having made whirlwind starts on three rinks across the carpet with scores of 9-0, 9-1, and 6-0, negated only by a 3-1 loss on the fourth.

But a superb comeback, culminating in double-figure wins on the rinks skipped Danny McDougall and Colin Walker, lifted Midlothian team morale and, supported by a peel for Graeme Archer, handsomely covered the narrow setback suffered by team captain Ronnie Duncan.

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The home team’s response to that shock 21-shot deficit came in the shape of a 32-3 blitz over ends 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Midlothian’s 36-28 capture of that first seven-end phase set them up for a match supremacy of 30-20 on the second phase and 39-30 on the third.

McDougall produced a fiery response of 4, 2, 2, 4 (1), 4. 1 to skip Neil Linton, debutant Liam McKay and Jimmy Cullen from 0-9 to 17-10 then remained on fire with a super count of 6 and a sizzling run of 5, 2, 4 to win 36-20.

Walker was always a dominant figure as he skipped Ian Forbes, Paul Innes and Dougie Russell to a 24-11 victory having emerged with the upper hand on 14 of the 21 ends.

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Archer and his front three of Scott Runciman, Craig Hodge and Andrew Caldwell won their end count 12/9 but had to settle for a 22-22 peel having suffered heavy losses of a 6 and a 5.

Duncan managed to skip Jamie Macnab, Ian Flemin, and AJ Knight back into a winning position at 13-12 from 0-6 but collapsed to 22-13 down before a late rally reduced the extent of their defeat to two shots (23-25).