Midlothian cut Arbroath adrift at foot of table

Published on Monday 16 November 2009 09:05

MIDLOTHIAN doubled their points tally from two to four in the A section of the indoor bowls premier league to give them some breathing space in the relegation zone as their 85-60 away win on Saturday was over foot-of-the-table Arbroath.

The Midlothian camp is overjoyed that they have opened up a sizeable four-point gap that keeps Arbroath anchored on zero points from five games, and they have also leapfrogged Auchinleck.

"Away wins in the premier league are difficult to come by and our form line wasn't strong so to win by 25 shots was an encouraging result for us and we fired well on three of our four rinks," said manager Frank Gray.

Gray's pre-match concerns centred on his team's habit of collapsing in the later stages of a match so it was particularly pleasing for him that Midlothian's strongest phase performance came on the third and in answer to Arbroath pressure.

Good double-figure wins for the rinks skipped by Colin Walker, David Peacock and Graeme Archer secured the precious points for the visitors against the backdrop of Arbroath dishing out a heavy defeat to Billy Peacock.

Midlothian overcame a threatening 12-0 deficit for the older of the Peacock brothers over the opening seven ends to win the first phase 30-22, but Arbroath kept the outcome on a knife-edge by capturing the second, 26-20.

The third phase was a triumphant one for Midlothian, with the visitors finishing ahead on all four rinks to dominate it 35-12 and so ensure a happy bus on the trip home to Dalkeith.

There were long faces, though, for the rink of Ronnie Duncan, Ian Forbes, Sandy Knight and Billy Peacock who were left to reflect on a massively disappointing result that saw them trail Dave Strachan 15-0 after eight punishing ends.

They only counted at five of the 20 ends completed but did well enough to yield no further ground in a 25-10 defeat that transferred pressure on to the other three rinks.

David Peacock did his level best to spare the blushes of his older sibling by skipping Robert Campbell, Robert Trench and Lindsay Plenderleith to a 26-12 win over Andrew Furye, having made steady headway to lead 15-8 after 14 ends.

Their highlight was still to come, however, in the shape of a magnificent seven at the 19th end and that killed off the growing menace of the opposition.

Walker hit the ground running to skip Martin Wyllie, Kevin McDougall and Willie Rankin into a 10-1 lead after seven ends then at 18-9 the full cap produced a sprint finish of 1, 4, 1 to crush Grant Stewart 24-9.

Archer was also on target in the early stages to skip Calum Crawford, David Salkeld and Ian Brown into an 11-1 lead after five ends against Darren Burnett then, coming under pressure at 15-13, they stepped up an extra gear to include a 5 and win 25-14.

&#149 MEADOWMILL bowler Paul Foster gave the home country its first Scottish International Open title since 2002 with an 8-3, 7-8, 2-0 win over Ian Bond.

East Lothian ace Foster said: "It's always good to win a title, particularly as this is the first WBT ranking event of the season.

"I couldn't have played any better. That's the best I've ever played on the portable rink."