Outdoor league is up for grabs in title decider

Editorial Department • Published 19 Aug 2010 16:00 0 Comments

Share this

This year’s Border Counties League champions will not be known until the final fixtures will be played this week.

After holding the number one position for the majority of the season Dungannon now have a fight on their hands when they travel to Omagh for their final fixture with only a seven point lead over their opponents and a total of ten points on offer.

Dungannon lost out to Clogher Valley last week on the synthetic green and will be hopeful of better result on the grass surface in Omagh, this week in their attempt to collected their first championship title.

Omagh of course will be thinking differently and after a run of great results recently, and the very important home advantage on their side will be a force to contend with.

Unfortunately Clogher Valley, who were in serious contention, are now not in the running even with the maximum points out of their game this week against Sion Mills, they cannot overtake the present leaders and may have to settle with the runners-up spot.

This week also sees the final of the Gerald McGurk Memorial Shield taking place when Omagh play Ballybay. The final which is played over two legs and is decided on overall shots will have the first leg played in Omagh who will be going all out for ‘the double’.

Knowing they have to travel to the synthetic surface in Ballybay for the return leg next week, Omagh will be attempting not only to win this encounter but to win by a wide margin of shots which they will need before they travel to the County Monaghan club for the final stage .

Border Counties Champion Of Champions will be hosted by the Ballybay Club on Saturday, September 4. Bowlers from the respective clubs who compete in the league will send their winners of their club’s fours, pairs and singles competitions to compete for the coveted titles of Champion of Champions in each category.

Clogher Valley 7 points (67 shots) Dungannon 3 points (39 shots)

Dungannon were fully aware that they needed points in this encounter at Fivemiletown, to seal the championship title but were also aware of the difficult task ahead of them.

At the end of the evening’s play Clogher Valley convincingly won two of the games, drew one and lost the remaining game to collect the seven shots.

Billy Dunlop and his rink of Gladys Dunlop, Sandy Atwell, and Maurice Malone had no difficulty at all in their game against Dungannon’s W Cardwell. Billy’s rink only allowed their opposite rink to win four ends out of the fifteen played and after they chalked up an important six shots in the seventh end the game was virtually over, resulting in an overwhelming 23 shots to 8 victory for the home rink.

On rink three, Matt Livingstone’s ‘Valley’ rink consisting of E Robinson, A Browne and H Nelson had a similar result against Dungannon’s A Rafferty also allowing their opposition to win only four ends and ending convincing winners by 21 shots to 4 .

There was an end to end game on rink four between V Kirkpatrick, K Givens, Billy Kirkpatrick and skip Ernie Clarke against Dungannon’s A Hardy. This game could have gone either way with play throughout at a very high level by both rinks with the score at the end of the 12th end standing at 12 shots each, showing the closeness of play.

Ernie’s rink secured the one point after collecting two singles in the last two ends to draw at 14 shots each.

Clogher Valley’s only defeat of the evening took place on rink one where, A Hurst, Frances and Blaney Cartwright and skip John Burrell, although taking a 7 shots to 1 early lead against Dungannon’s D Robinson, lost out by a 13 shots to 9 margin.

Results skips names only:

Clogher Valley Dungannon

J Burrell 9 D Robinson 13

B Dunlop 23 W Cardwell 8

E Clarke 14 A Hardy 14

M Livingstone 21 A Rafferty 4

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 19 Aug 10

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Sport archives.