THE Edinburgh & Leith challenge in the East section of the Scottish Cities & Counties Bowls Championship is over and it ended on a low note with a surprise defeat from Fife at Strathmiglo – their third setback in a seven-match campaign.
The early promise of three wins in a row turned out to be a false dawn for the Capital's elite bowlers and E&L secretary Colin Nicholl admitted: "It's back to the drawing board and a complete rethink of our strategies."
The alarm bells have been
ringing loud and clear for several seasons now and the – albeit narrow – two-shot defeat (117-115) from a team that seldom threatens the section front-runners is just the latest of many under- performances.
"To be fair we went into this match chasing shots in an effort to overhaul East Lothian for the second qualifying spot in the league table and our attacking policy was a risk strategy that backfired on occasions," ventured one member of the E&L camp.
Two enforced changes saw E&L hand well-earned debuts to George Kirk (Blackhall) and Russell Wilson (Juniper Green) and both showed promise in the absence of Darren Hush and John Ramsay.
E&L were successful on the rinks skipped by Mal Higgenbotham, Robert Marshall and Paul O'Donnell but their colleagues Colin Hutchison, Colin Mitchell and James Hogg were unable to deliver.
Fife benefited from the count of a magnificent seven on the seventh end against Hogg and that enabled them to capture the first phase 50-33 and, although E&L did enough to edge the next two – 38-32 and 44-35 – it wasn't enough to rescue a win.
Hogg and his front three of George Kirk, Johnny Priestley and Darren McKenny suffered the biggest nightmare of all, counting at only five of the 21 ends as they suffered a 27-7 drubbing from Alan Pearson.
Hutchison was heading in the same direction as Hogg at 14-5 down after 11 ends but skipped Kevin Hunter, Scott Rogers and Jamie Gracie to a 2, 4, 2, 2 revival and cross to 15 before slipping to a 22-20 defeat from Calum Young.
Mitchell skipped David Brown Danny Jackson and Paul Veitch into an encouraging 13-7 lead but collapsed to 21-14 down and lost 21-19 to Malcolm Comrie.
Any challenge that did come from E&L was fired up by Higgenbotham, who was aggressive in skipping David Scott, Jason Ronaldson and Andrew Caldwell to a 27-16 win that included a run of 2, 1, 5, 1 against Alan Hill.
Marshall made a strong start to skip Dougie Martin, Frank O'Reilly and Alan Brown into an 11-1 lead and they traded on that cushion to beat James Forbes 18-10.
O'Donnell was in trouble 16-9 down and did well to skip Alan Trotter, Russell Wilson and Robert Donaldson to a 24-21 win over David Comrie, with only the loss of a 5 spoiling a finishing flourish of 3, 4, 1, 2, 2, 3.
• FOUNTAIN crashed to a 7-2 away defeat from Caledonian B but, after nine games played, still top the West Edinburgh 1st Sixteens League with 49 points from Sighthill B in second place on the 43 mark.
Currie's 6-3 home win over Ardmillan B was enough to keep them top of the 2nd Sixteens league with 56 points although they are being pressed on 54 by Stenhouse who climbed the table with a 9-0 win over Caledonian A.
