Bowls: Edinburgh & Leith stunned by super West Lothian display

Published on Monday 1 June 2009 09:57

EDINBURGH & Leith are nursing the wounds of a crushing 156-108 bowls defeat at the hands of West Lothian when the two undefeated teams clashed in the East section of the Hamilton Trophy at Mayfield, writes STEWART MEIKLE.

Home team captain Andrew Ramsay was an absentee leading to the call-up of Robert Donaldson (Parkside) and the promotion to skip of Paul O'Donnell.

Wins for the rinks skipped by O'Donnell and James Hogg paled into insignificance as their colleagues Billy Mellors, Robert Marshall, Mal Higgenbotham and Colin Mitchell tumbled to defeat.

E&L attacked from the off and, helped by a sizzling six for Higgenbotham, rocked the visitors with a 13-0 clean sweep on the opening end.

E&L traded on that over the next six ends and captured the first seven-end phase 53-39 but a sensational transformation saw West Lothian roar back to win the second phase 52-28 then complete the destruction with a 65-27 domination of the third.

The major damage on E&L was inflicted by man of the match Thomas Mann, who skipped Frazer Muirhead, Walter McDougall and Gary Smith to a 39-5 win over David Brown, Johnny Priestley, Paul Veitch and Colin Mitchell.

Mitchell and Co only registered at three of the 21 ends and the price of that is being paid by the front end who are stood down for E&L's next match.

Two teams qualify for the knockout stage of the Cities and Counties Championship and E&L have tumbled to the runners-up spot but, in a great stroke of good fortune, their next two closest rivals, East Lothian and Border, both suffered second defeats.

So, with three fixtures still to fulfil, West Lothian top the table with eight points from four games, followed by Edinburgh & Leith on six, Border Midlothian and East Lothian on four, West Fife Stirling County East and Fife on two.