Bowls: Bainfield hold their nerve to survive relegation scare

Coatbridge were without a point from their eight previous matches but stormed into a  15-shot lead after just four ends.

“I thought my worst fears of meeting a Coatbridge team fired up to salvage some pride were about to come to fruition,” said team manager John Bell.

Bainfield showed tremendous resolve to keep themselves clear of the relegation zone and having crossed from 9-24 to 29-18 in the space of four ends kicked on to score an 88-67 victory.

“The turning point came in the tenth end with Gavin Smith carding a mighty 5 to push his rink into a 14-9 lead then Robert Marshall counting a magic 3 to have his opposition on the wrack at 15-5 up,” added Bell.

“We gained confidence from the 41-33 match lead that these counts gave us and never looked in any danger after that.”

Bainfield are now ten points clear of Coatbridge and four ahead of Midlothian with only one match remaining.

Wins on the rinks skipped by Gavin Smith, Colin Hutchison and Robert Marshall left Bell satisfied with a team performance that coped well with the defeat suffered by a strong-finishing Paul O’Donnell.

The phase scoring saw Bainfield lose the first seven ends 27-24 but they bounced back to capture the second, 34-15, before consolidating with a 30-25 success on the third.

Smith pushed on from 14-12 with a run of 1, 2, (2), 3, 1, 3, 4 to lead 28-14 then skip Chris Downie, Brian Stoddart and John McDermott to a 32-19 win over David Taggart.

Hutchison counted at 14 of the 21 ends to skip Daniel Gormley, Alan Brown and team captain Craig Moss to a 20-9 win over Scott McKitting.

Marshall was flying over the first 14 ends to skip Neil Watson, Stephen Pringle and Kevin Tennant into a 21-6 lead over Robert Murphy but failed to count on the remaining five ends and had to settle for a  21-18 victory.

O’Donnell and his rink of Paul Miller, Stuart Patterson and Craig Paterson conceded an 8 at the third end to trail 10-0 and continued to struggle at 21-9 down but showed spirit with a 2, 1, 1, 2 finish to lose 21-15 to Gordon McKenzie.