Bowls: West Lothian power through but E&L are made to wait

The Edinburgh & Leith challenge for the coveted Andrew Hamilton Trophy was put on hold following the postponement of their Cities & Counties quarter-final bowls match against Lanarkshire West at Larbert on Saturday.

The umpires, as a consequence of persistent rain, 
declared Larbert unplayable and the latest news from Bowls Scotland is that the match will now take place on Friday night (6.15pm) at the same venue.

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The other three quarter-
finals all survived however and West Lothian took advantage, although their game against Ayrshire North at Vale of Leven got the go-ahead in unusual circumstances with the two teams agreeing to play over two side-by-side greens to capitalise on the fact that each had three rinks that were playable.

West Lothian’s eventual march into the semi-final by a score of 144 to 97 was achieved impressively with wins on four rinks – skipped by Grant Logan, Neil Speirs, Steven Fleming, and Raymond Logan – atoning for the defeat of Tommy Mann and John Aitken.

West Lothian powering to a 52–30 domination of the first seven ends then, picking up from a 
laboured 44-43 spell on the second, pulled away 48-24 on the third. Grant Logan made a phenomenal contribution to the WL success, skipping Steven Forrest, Greg Logan and Mark Allison into a spectacular 15-0 lead after seven ends then charging to 24-3 before dishing out a 39-9 lesson to J Hume.

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Speirs was deemed by his manager to have given a master class of the skills of bowling as he skipped Andrew Semple, Ian Drysdale and Alec Allan into a 14-2 lead after eight ends then included later runs of 1, 3, 3, and 1, 2, 3, 2 to beat A Rodgerson, 30-14.

Fleming accelerated from 8-4 to 16-4 with a run of 1, 1, 1, 3, 2 then skipped Diz Drysdale, Walter McDougall and James Speirs to a commanding 26-12 win over I Galloway.

Logan (Ray) started with a 4, 4 bang then traded comfortably on that cushion to skip Frazer Muirhead, Bryan Cooper and Gary Smith to a 22-16 win over D O’Rourke.

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Mann and his rink of Cameron Greer, George Sneddon and Blair Mackie trailed Foster 10-3 after seven ends and lost 20-10 while Ewan Shearer, Sandy McDougall, Calum 
Logan and Aitken trailed 10-1 and crashed 26-17 to S Stevenson.

Other results: Andrew Hamilton 
Trophy, quarter-finals: Dumfriesshire 82, Aberdeen & Kincardine 70, at Invergowrie; Lanarkshire South 153, Northern Counties 81, at Raploch; West Lothian 144, Ayrshire North 97, at Vale of Leven.