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.

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.

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.

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.