Bowls: Deadly duo of Marshall and Ashby lift first world title

East Lothian's Marshall and Ashby, a former winner of this title when she lived in Eastbourne, and who now resides in Livingston and plays at Midlothian, joined forces and produced the goods in the two-hour final.

They eventually lifted the title with the last bowl on the second end of the tie-break to win 6-9, 10-5, 2-0 and end the hopes of a three-in-a-row success for Davies and Gourlay.

Both had won this title before, with Marshall's one and only win coming in 2004 with Amy Monkhouse at the expense of Ashby and Andy Thomson, while Ashby became the first-ever three-time winner of the title having won back to back with John Price in 2006 and 2007.

For 42-year-old Marshall, who celebrates his next birthday in three weeks time, it was an amazing eighth world title at Potters, adding this title to the pairs win he notched up with Gourlay in 2000 and of course his five singles crowns.

In the semi-finals, Marshall and Ashby booked their tilt at the title after a 11-1, 8-6 win over Dee McSparran from the United States and Suffolk's Mark Royal while Davies and Gourlay blocked an all-East Lothian final confrontation between Marshall and his best friend Paul Foster, who lost 5-7, 9-4, 2-1 with partner Debbie Stavrou.

In the final, Davies – Scotland's High Performance Manager for the sport – and Gourlay made the early running and took first blood with a 2 and 1 finish to win 9-6.

In the second, the scoreline would suggest that it was one-way traffic but, in truth, Marshall denied the defending champions time and time again with a succession of telling conversion shots from the delicate draw to the all-out drive to retrieve the position and set up a winner-takes-all tie-break for the title.

Marshall swayed the verdict on the first end and once again in the second, with his last delivery lightly resting on Gourlay's holding shot to take the vital single to settle the outcome in his favour.

"Obviously we're delighted to win," enthused Marshall later, adding: "Ceri and David were deserved winners of the first set but, as the second started, I told Carol just to imagine we were starting the whole match all over again. We played better in it and I played a lot of big bowls to turn the heads and as we know, a tie-break can go any way.

"It was a weird game, and there were a lot of ends that were really close and then a lot of ends that were a bit scrappy. The pace was definitely strange, and was catching us out. Sometimes you couldn't be confident of stringing two bowls together and you didn't know where they were going to finish. But it was the same for all of us."

Looking forward to his Singles match tomorrow with rising Scottish star Stewart Anderson, Marshall said: "This will definitely give me a boost in the singles, and will give me added confidence."

Marshall's Meadowmill clubmate Foster was aiming to secure a quarter-final berth today. In the first of the third-round matches, the No.4 seed will have to be at his best against another top Scottish player, Darren Burnett from Arbroath.

Gourlay, the No.6 seed was also due to be in third-round action today against Kelvin Kerkow, seeded 11.

SCOTLAND failed to retain the Women's under-25 Home International Series title at the Cynon Valley club in Wales yesterday.

Despite winning on three of the four rinks on their last match of the Series, a 31-10 defeat for Midlothian's Gaynor Blair cost them the title when they were beaten 76-69 in their winner-takes-all confrontation with England.

Both teams had gone into the final day unbeaten, with the Scots chalking up a 60-44 win over Ireland followed by a 74-55 win over Wales. The rinks skipped by Michelle Cooper from Ardrossan and Headwell's Sarah Jane Ewing were the only two Scottish rinks who finished the series unbeaten.