Edinburgh & Leith wallop West Fife at Wardie

John McDermott was a winning skip for E&L

Edinburgh & Leith produced a strong team performance with wins on five of their six rinks as they powered to a spectacular 130-90 victory over West Fife at Wardie in round three of the Cities and Counties Championship.

Victories were posted on the rinks skipped by Paul Veitch, Robert Marshall, John McDermott, Paul O’Donnell and Mal Higgenbottom while Paul Brown of West Fife inflicted a double-figure defeat on James Hogg.

E&L led from start to finish having established an early supremacy with a purple patch spell of 10-2, 10-5, 11-3 and 6-2 that accelerated them from 30-22 after five ends to 67-34 entering the tenth.

The master scoreboard then reflected E&L operating in a 29-shot comfort zone (116-87) after 19 ends. However, there was still more to come with a grandstand finish of 7-1, 7-2 that reached a peak high of 40 shots.

E&L won all three phases of the match, dominating the first 50-29 and the second 48-32, then edging the third 32-29.

Veitch was in fine form to count at 15 of the 21 ends and emerged E&L’s top performer to skip Daniel Gormley, Steven Pilley and Alan Brown to a 27-9 win – including a super count of six at end seven – over Kenny Bald.

Marshall included inspiring runs of 1, 1, 3, 5, and 2, 1, 1, 1, 3 as he skipped Craig McCall, Darren McKenny and Jamie Gracie to a 28-11 win over Jim Roxburgh while McDermott traded on a 14-5 lead after 12 ends to skip Steven Pringle, David Fisher and Robert Donaldson to a 22-13 win over Rab McFarlane. O’Donnell finished 2, 1, to clinch a 20-16 win over Alan McIntyre and Higgenbotham edged home 18-15 from 14-14 against Craig Watson. Hogg and his front-three of Josh Spalding, John Ramsay and Darren Hush suffered a 26-15 setback.

Meanwhile, East Lothian made it three wins out of three with a magnificent 145-92 triumph away to Fife County at Leslie BC with the main contribution coming from captain Scott Kennedy skipping Stewart Thomson, Colin McLeod and Willie Wood MBE to a 35-13 win over Alan Pearson.

West Lothian were in rampant form to crush Stirling County East 155-84 at Larbert with Andy Dunnett (28-8) leading the charge.

Midlothian slumped to a first defeat as Borders won on five rinks to celebrate a comprehensive 137-91 victory on away territory at Newbattle.

The fourth round of fixtures in the East section this weekend features West Lothian v Edinburgh & Leith at Queensferry; East Lothian v Midlothian at West Barns; Borders v Fife at Coldstream; West Fife v Stirling East at Abbeyview.