The sun was shining last Tuesday as the Northern Seniors took on Leith, over at Wardie, in the Edinburgh & Leith Senior league Top Ten KO Final.
Our pair of Graeme Prentice & Andy Reid, and our rink of Alan Mitchell, Jim Prentice, Roy Campbell & Jim Bathgate both started well and both teams were in the lead after four ends. In the triples, Davey Reid, Larry Sorrell & George Prentice, only won one of the first four ends and were a bit down.
The singles, between Garry Harrison and Ali MacKay, was also shaping up to be a very tight match. Ali won the first two ends by one shot before Garry started scoring. Regularly the shot would be tapped out in a battle of the chap and lies, and they were both winning ends by a single shot before Garry had a run of winning ends to go into the lead at 14 -7.
Meanwhile, the pairs managed to grab themselves a 5 in one end to increase their lead and the fours had also been steadily increasing their score. In the triples, the Leith lead, Ian Ramsay, was consistently putting a bowl or two on the jack and making things difficult but Northern then scored a 4 in the seventh end to reduce the deficit to just 3 before Leith started scoring again.
The fours team were the first to finish and had a commanding lead going into the last end. Leith managed to win that last end and reduce the Northern lead to 4 shots, but at least the first points on the board went to Northern.
The singles finished next, after nearly two hours of play. Garry was still well in the lead but then knocked Ali’s bowl in for the shot. This was followed by Garry losing a 3, and after a few more back and forth ends the score was 20 – 19 to Garry. Ali put 2 shots on the jack and although Garry played a cracker to move the bowls and jack, it wasn’t enough and Ali won 21 -20. The match was now even on points with the Northern having a lead of 3 shots in total.
The triples team had been limiting the damage as the Leith lead continued to find the jack with his bowls. With two ends to play the Northern triples were 8 shots down. The match was going to finish on even points and the result was going to be decided on total shots scored.
The pairs finished with Graeme and Andy 7 shots up, putting Northern 10 shots up overall. However, after the triples played their fourteenth end, Leith had increased their lead to 9 shots. That made it only one shot difference in the shots total. Both teams needed to win the last end by a single shot to win the cup. Everybody was outside watching this last end.
The first players had played their bowls and Leith was lying shot. Larry played a bowl on the big swinging forehand and it appeared to be high until his bowl finish by running almost sideways into the head to stop about two feet behind the jack and lie shot. Adam Davidson, the Leith skip, played a great shot on the big swinging forehand to lie shot, a bit in front of the jack and also block that hand.
George was left with no draw shot and played to tap in one of our short bowls into the head. He hit our bowls and got a bit of luck as one of bowls contacted the Leith bowl and left us lying shot. George put his second bowl into the head to lie two shots. Adam’s last bowl for Leith looked like it would be turning onto the jack but it just nicked a bowl and was deflected. George didn’t need to play his last bowl and what a climax to the match! The Northern retained the Top Ten Trophy!
Well played everyone in the team. In this type of match, losing by the smallest number of shots possible is just as essential as winning a game. A great team effort.
You must be logged in to post a comment.