BAINFIELD travelled to Hillside last night intent on avenging last season's shock home defeat in the Edinburgh and Leith Top Five Singles Championship and it was mission accomplished with a 4-1 victory for the visitors.
The only Hillside success came from District 11 Junior Singles champion Kyle Newall, 22, but the home side were well and truly sunk by Craig Paterson, Paul Millar, Craig Moss and Paul O'Donnell.
Paterson was the first out of the blocks blazing
his way to an incredible 21-9 victory in 12 ends over two-in-a-row Hillside champion Gary Muir having lost the opening two ends to trail 7-0.
Newall levelled the match with a 21-18 win over Stoddart in 19 ends having showed tremendous skill and bottle to get back into contention from 17 9 down and from 16-18 hit 21 with a 4, 1 finish.
Hillside might have expected to go 2-1 up when four-times champion Brian Irving had Millar at his 12-6 mercy, however, a barren spell saw him collapse to 12-19 then a damaging 21-16 defeat.
O'Donnell put Bainfield into the next round with a 21-14 win over two-times Hillside champion BJ Smith having traded on a 19-6 cushion, then Moss beat three-times home champion Kevin Moncur 21-12.
"We expected Bainfield to be well up for this after last season's result but our own resistance to them was disappointingly weak," summed up BJ Smith.
• THE "big gun" clubs enter the first round of the Specsavers Opticians Edinburgh Cup tonight but some are hit by Trades Holiday absences such as Craigentinym who tackle West End without Willie McDonald, Gordon Bold and Kevin McFarlane.
Tanfield had a weakened League side on duty on Wednesday night and are likely to be under-strength against Wardie, however, Hillside are fielding their strongest against Mayfield.
Other clashes of note include: Parkside v Braid; Pilrig v Leith; Dean v Whitehouse and Grange; Goldenacre v Merchiston and Willowbrae v Portobello.
DUDLEY produced a 9-0 home win over Corstorphine in Division 2 of the Alpha Trophies Edinburgh Bowling League to close the gap with table-toppers Wardie and second-placed Goldenacre.
Foot-of-the-table Seafield surprised Wardie with a 6-3 home win, a result that was matched by relegation-zoned Postal who beat Goldenacre 6-3 while Maitland battled to a 5-4 away win over Willowbrae.
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