The Champion of Champions took place at Shaw’s Bridge in Belfast on Saturday, November 9 when a number of bowlers from Western took part in the singles, pairs, triples and rinks competitions.

Unfortunately, a number of the Western bowlers had very close and hard fought games but were unable to reach a number of the finals but the pairing of Stuart Cochrane and Gary Brian (skip) kept the Western hopes alive by reaching the Pairs Final. They demolished a pair from Foyle Zone beating them 13-3 in the semi final stages and this put them into the final against L Graham and M Graham from the Du Pont club in the North West Zone. A number of the Western bowlers stayed on to support Stuart and Gary in the final and kept other bowlers back home with up-to-date news of the score line. After three ends had been played, Stuart and Gary found themselves 6-0 down.

In the fourth end, they started to crawl back into the game by lifting two shots. By the seventh end, the score line was 7-5 in favour of their opponents, then in the eighth end Stuart and Gary lost another two shots but gained one shot in the ninth end.

With the score line sitting at nine shots to six shots against Gary and only one end left to play, getting three shots to tie the game was an uphill battle against a very strong pair. Stuart and Gary tried their best but unfortunately were unable to gain the three shots required. Congratulations must go to Stuart and Gary on reaching the final after a long day of bowls. The winning pair now go on to represent Ireland in the World Indoor Shortmat Bowls next year.