Bonnyrigg's hopes dashed in Inter County Top Ten

Bonnyrigg's bid to reach the final day's play of the Co-operative Funeralcare-sponsored Inter County Top Ten Tournament at Colinton BC on Sunday, June 12 came to grief in the quarter-finals.

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The champions of Midlothian were expected to make home advantage count against Paisley Caledonia but, despite bold efforts, failed to get on top of their Renfrewshire counterparts and suffered a frustrating 6-2 defeat.

Bowls Scotland had angered the Bonnyrigg camp by denying them the services of spearhead figure Ronnie Duncan, who was turning out in an international trial instead.

Jamie Hanlon stepped into Duncan’s shoes and was caught in an opening whirlwind to trail Stuart Carson 11-3 then set the home pulse rates racing with a strong recovery from 6-16 to 18-19 before losing 21-18 to a double on end 20.

The Pairs partnership of Calum Redpath and John Stevenson promised a better outcome at 9-6 up but collapsed to 18-9 down with losses of 6, 3, 1, 2 then failed to save the day with a 1, 2, 1, 2 finish in an 18-15 defeat by Andrew Neil and Alan MacLean.

Bonnyrigg were kept in the match by a nail-biting 15-14 win for Neil Linton, Drew Pearson and Kevin McDougall in the Triples over John Myles, Iain Gray and Gregor Pattison.

Hopes of a miracle escape were raised with a fightback being staged by Scott Lees, Scott Matthews, John Tod and Tam Russell in the Fours from 2-10 to 14-15 but were dashed in the end by an 18-15 defeat from Kevin Houston, Derek Faulds, Scott Colquhoun and David Wright.

Elsewhere, Rock (Dunbartonshire) won 6-2 away to Chirnside (Borders); Troon (Ayrshire) celebrated an 8-0 win at home to Argyll (Argyll & Bute); Newgate (Angus) beat visiting Overtown & Waterloo (Lanarkshire) 6-2.

n THE Under-25 brigade of Edinburgh & Leith were completing a hat-trick of opening League Cup wins when they returned from Leven with a 24-shot victory (129-114) over Fife.

The rink honours were shared 3-3 but the shot aggregate scales were tipped in favour of E&L by the wins of Jamie Reid, Liam McKay and Josh Spalding.

Reid skipped Aron Donald, Ewan Martin and Andrew Tregoning into an 11-1 lead then on to a 29-8 win while McKay finish 4, (2), 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 1 from 15-8 to skip David Torrance, Robert Ewing and James Barr to a 29-10 win.

The other rink scores were: Josh Spalding 21-20; Ross Thomson 17-24; Daniel Gormley 15-24; Stephen Pringle 18-29.