Edinburgh & Leith wallop West Fife at Wardie

Edinburgh & Leith produced a strong team performance with wins on five of their six rinks as they powered to a spectacular 130-90 victory over West Fife at Wardie in round three of the Cities and Counties Championship.

John McDermott was a winning skip for E&L

Victories were posted on the rinks skipped by Paul Veitch, Robert Marshall, John McDermott, Paul O’Donnell and Mal Higgenbottom while Paul Brown of West Fife inflicted a double-figure defeat on James Hogg.

E&L led from start to finish having established an early supremacy with a purple patch spell of 10-2, 10-5, 11-3 and 6-2 that accelerated them from 30-22 after five ends to 67-34 entering the tenth.

The master scoreboard then reflected E&L operating in a 29-shot comfort zone (116-87) after 19 ends. However, there was still more to come with a grandstand finish of 7-1, 7-2 that reached a peak high of 40 shots.

E&L won all three phases of the match, dominating the first 50-29 and the second 48-32, then edging the third 32-29.

Veitch was in fine form to count at 15 of the 21 ends and emerged E&L’s top performer to skip Daniel Gormley, Steven Pilley and Alan Brown to a 27-9 win – including a super count of six at end seven – over Kenny Bald.

Marshall included inspiring runs of 1, 1, 3, 5, and 2, 1, 1, 1, 3 as he skipped Craig McCall, Darren McKenny and Jamie Gracie to a 28-11 win over Jim Roxburgh while McDermott traded on a 14-5 lead after 12 ends to skip Steven Pringle, David Fisher and Robert Donaldson to a 22-13 win over Rab McFarlane. O’Donnell finished 2, 1, to clinch a 20-16 win over Alan McIntyre and Higgenbotham edged home 18-15 from 14-14 against Craig Watson. Hogg and his front-three of Josh Spalding, John Ramsay and Darren Hush suffered a 26-15 setback.

Meanwhile, East Lothian made it three wins out of three with a magnificent 145-92 triumph away to Fife County at Leslie BC with the main contribution coming from captain Scott Kennedy skipping Stewart Thomson, Colin McLeod and Willie Wood MBE to a 35-13 win over Alan Pearson.

West Lothian were in rampant form to crush Stirling County East 155-84 at Larbert with Andy Dunnett (28-8) leading the charge.

Midlothian slumped to a first defeat as Borders won on five rinks to celebrate a comprehensive 137-91 victory on away territory at Newbattle.

The fourth round of fixtures in the East section this weekend features West Lothian v Edinburgh & Leith at Queensferry; East Lothian v Midlothian at West Barns; Borders v Fife at Coldstream; West Fife v Stirling East at Abbeyview.