TANFIELD bowling club launched the defence of their Specsavers Opticians Edinburgh Cup with an 8-4 victory over Parkside, but they lived dangerously on two of their four successful rinks.
The match was a re-run of last year's final and 2005 champions Parkside were left frustrated by their failure to level the rink scores as their superior shot aggregate of 100-87 would have meant overall victory.
The format of the Edinburgh Cup is
three rinks at home and three rinks away, with two points for each win, and Tanfield won all at Parkside. There was plenty of exciting drama involved with Mal Higgenbotham trailing Willie Watson 15-5 after 11-ends before a storming finish of 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 saw him skip Alex Caldwell, Peter Findlay and Derek McLean to a sensational 17-15 victory.
Then David Snodgrass answered pressure at 14-13 up to skip Neil Buchanan, Craig Snodgrass and Alex Thompson to a 16-14 win over Bob Ramsay.
Graeme McIntosh skipped Stuart McKean, Stuart Thompson and Willie Paul to a 20-15 success over David Moran's rink.
Parkside did much better at Tanfield where Paul Veitch moved from 9-9 to 16-10 and then did enough to skip Martin Burns, David Craig and Derek Smith to a 16-14 win over Kenny Lackie.
Alex Hurry skipped Graham Fraser, Brian Fraser and Danny Jackson to a 25-4 triumph.
Parkside still had a chance to win the match as Robert Donaldson edged back from 8-12 to stand peels at 15 playing the last against Stuart Campbell. But
Campbell was the hero for the holders as he edged the all-important single to skip Paul White, Jamie McIntosh and Bill McLachlan to a 16-15 victory.
