Dumfries all but home and dry after title challengers fade

DUMFRIES have refused to remove the bubbly from the Nunholm ice bucket, despite effectively wrapping up the championship.

Their home victory over RH Corstorphine, coupled with defeats for their chief challengers Renfrew and Ferguslie, means it would take a series of freak results to deny them the finest achievement in the history of the club. Cautious but excited president Rory Fergusson chuckled: "No one here is getting carried away just yet.

"Mathematically we can still be overhauled, though it would be remarkable if that were to happen.

"Our reckoning is that we need to pick up just two more points to be sure, so all being well we will be celebrating next weekend. Last week we began to talk about plans for how we would mark the success, but there were howls of protest from the players.

"They simply don't want to be part of any title talk until we are uncatchable."

Fergusson added: "These are exciting times for us, but without wishing to sound boastful, it was along the lines of what we expected.

"We had been knocking at the door for three seasons and we believed winning the league would happen at some stage. In the meantime we will keep our powder dry."

Perhaps the jitters were evident in the Dumfries line-up as they scraped their victory by only two wickets in the final over.

Rob More's 37 had teed up the Edinburgh team to set a target of 160, and Dumfries had Josh Geary (45) to thank for getting them over the line.

Imans Edinburgh fired a double whammy at Paisley. Not only did they end Ferguslie's quest to come from behind to pip Dumfries, they also hoisted themselves off the basement.

Their place at the bottom of the pile was taken by Kelburne, who were brushed aside with ease by West Lothian at Boghall.

Anthony McKenna and Gregor Thomson each snapped up four cheap wickets to send the visitors sliding to 81 all out.

Jared Cookson staved off any possibility of a Kelburne fightback with a patient 40.