Bowls: Bainfield beat Porty in city derby

The Seniors brigade of Bainfield were on top form in their derby match at Portobello in the East B division of the national bowls league and inflicted a 75-52 victory over their Capital rivals.

Bainfield served up a strong team performance to win on all four rinks, skipped by Neil Butters, Adam Brock, Bill Garden and Bill Little.

Butters included a run of 1, 5, 1, 3, 5 as he skipped Willie McIntosh, James Cowan and Tam Seggie to a 22-12 win over Jimmy Marshall, George Clark, Keith Young and Willie Paul.

Brock added 4, 2 to move into an 11-5 lead then skipped John Pryde, Jim Piercey and Bill Herd to an 18-12 win over Ian Paterson, Gordon Walker, George Gray and Ronnie Douglas.

Garden tipped the scales with a 3, 2 finish to skip Alex Hunter, Jack McVey and Alan Craig to a 19-15 win over BJ Smith while Les Nicolson, Irvine Kemp, Alex Fisher and Little finished 1, 1, 5, to beat Tony McLaren, 16-13.

n BAINFIELD stars Chris Downie and Colin Hutchison will contest the final stages of the Scottish 2 Bowl Pairs Championship at Ardrossan in early December having qualified for the last four from the playdown action.

Their next opposition is Fraserburgh’s Derek Murray and Scott Murray while the other semi-final is Gary Hutchison and David Taylor of Falkirk versus Alex Kelly and Iain McLean of Blantyre.

The Bainfield club champions have international experience and they produced that level of form in their opening match to beat Bryan Cooper and Mark Allison of West Lothian, 2-0 in sets. They followed that with a 2-0 win over East Fife then beat Balbardie, 2-1, and Tweedbank, 2-1.

Portobello called in Andrew Caldwell for the unavailable Willie McDonald and he skipped Gordon Bold to a 2-0 win over Abbeyview then dealt a 2-1 exit to Alloa before losing 2-1 to Tweedbank.

The East Lothian banner was carried by Douglas Mitchell and Alan Young who opened with a 2-0 win over Midlothian before crashing out to a 2-0 defeat from Tweedbank.

The ladies’ version of the national 2 bowl pairs championship saw Portobello fail to take part and Bainfield make an early 2-0 exit to Teviotdale and they were joined on the sidelines by East Lothian who lost 2-1 to Falkirk.

Midlothian also bit the dust in the opening round, losing 2-0 to Karen McAndrew and Celia Smith of East Fife who carried on to reach the semi-final stage where they are joined by Perth, Whiteinch, and Blantyre.

Balbardie also failed to take part but West Lothian did put up a show with Irene Taylor and Helen MacDonald defeating Alloa then Tweedbank before losing to East Fife.