Bowls: East Lothian shuffle pack to deal with Marshall's absence

EAST Lothian step up their bid to land the Cities and Counties Championship for the coveted Andrew Hamilton Trophy against defending champions Lanarkshire South in Sunday's semi-final action at Larkhall.

It is a massive blow that East Lothian's major asset Alex Marshall MBE will miss the action. The Garden County team, however, have coped with this in the past and on this occasion, manager Angus Blair recalls Port Seton ace Steven Morgan.

Morgan is a leader with an attacking style of play, and he comes in to skip Grant Thomson, David Sked and Jamie Blair, while in a significant positional change, Craig Valentine is switched from lead to skip.

The other semi-final takes place at Dalkeith and features Ayrshire South against Aberdeen & Kincardine, who were controversial quarter-final winners over West Fife.

West Fife had a genuine axe to grind over the circumstances of the umpire's decision to abandon the match played at Newhills (Aberdeen) and lodged a letter of protest with Bowls Scotland, but no statement has surfaced from the ruling body.

"It isn't sour grapes that we were behind after 11-ends or trailed 75-70 when play was halted by bad weather, but we expected a fair crack of the whip and feel strongly that we didn't get that in the consultation and information process. It also cost us in excess of 2000 to be there on they day", said WF secretary Stuart Pagan.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, Carrick Knowe continue to lead the race for the ScotMid-sponsored 1st Sixteen title of the Water of Leith League, despite going down 3-2 at Slateford in this week's round of fixtures.

Slateford tipped the scales in thrilling fashion on the last end of three rinks to win each by a single shot, but Carrick Knowe won on the other and also banked the bonus point with a 15-shot triumph.

"We were missing top skips Colin Mitchell and Darren Hush, so (we] can live with a result that still leaves us with a 2 point cushion over Slateford in second place and 4 over Bainfield," said Carrick Knowe's John Mitchell.

Bainfield kept themselves in the frontline with a 4-1 home win over Currie, while defending champions Sighthill slammed Beechwood 5-0. The other results saw Colinton beat Balerno 3-1 and Juniper Green lose 0-5 to Gorgie Mills.

The prelim round of the Edinburgh Bowling League Knockout Championships sponsored by Ian Mackay Contracts got under way last night and play in the singles saw Colin Henderson of Goldenacre finish 1, 2, 1 to clinch a 21-15 win over Ally McKay of Leith at Trinity, while Pilrig's Chris Stevens beat Ross Nisbet of Summerside 21-10.

Last night's first round of the BARBQ-sponsored WLBA Top Five Singles saw defending champions Kirkliston lose 3-2 at home to Newbridge.