THE bowling rivalry between Pilrig and Leith is intense so a night of drama was expected when they clashed in the first round proper of the Specsavers Opticians Edinburgh Cup and, sure enough, it turned out to be a tight affair.
The final result was 8-4 in favour of Pilrig and, while that looks in print to have been a safe passage, the match was only a fraction of an inch from being 6-6 which that would have put Leith through thanks to a superior shot margin.
Pilrig
's hero was John Geddes, who faced defeat on the home leg with four shots against him on the final end, however, his last bowl into the head was a wing-and-a-prayer effort that was answered in the shape of a fluked single.
Geddes and his rink of Alex Nichol, Willie Miller and Walter Day had recovered from 13-6 down to cross 15-13 but lost a 5 to 18 before stealing a 19-18 win with a 1, 1 and 1 finish against a distraught Drew Dodds.
It was Pilrig's second home success of the fixture and the first was a nail-biter too, with Ryan Gow, George McPherson, Mike Wilson and Chris Steven just holding out from 14-6 up to edge a 15-14 win over the team of Davy Morris.
You could understand the frustration of Leith given that John Ramsay had bagged two away points by skipping Rab Davenport, Ian McQuarrie and Jimmy Malcom to an 18-11 win over Darren McKenny. The port side disappointed on their home leg but did produce a potential trump card in the shape of Peter McCabe, who zipped into a 12-2 lead after five ends with Ian Ramsay, Malcolm Milne and Jim Sim before stitching up Graeme Hislop in spectacular 28-4 style.
However, the Pilrig effort was pepped up by Scott Rogers, who showed tremendous acceleration from 10-5 to 27-5 and went on to skip Mike Trenholme, George Tregoning and Gavin Rogers to a 29-11 win over Robert Wood.
David Poole then stepped in to do the business for Pilrig, skipping Stuart Wilson, Jimmy Gow and Brian Inglis to a 15-11 win over Adam Davidson.
"I guess we can count ourselves lucky to be in the second round but we won the inaugural title in 1998 and again in 2006 so maybe our name is going to be on the cup for a third time," said a spokesman for Pilrig.
Meanwhile, Hillside scored a comfortable 10-2 win over Mayfield with home wins for the rinks skipped by Peter Brown (17-12) and Gary Muir (33-4) against Derek Burns and Billy Dick respectively.
Bill Ramsay made an away mark for Mayfield when, in a dramatic climax, he carded 3 at the last to clinch a 19-16 win over John Kennedy.
Hillside dominated their away leg with Davy Boyle (24-9), BJ Smith (21-13) and Keith Gallacher making it a clean sweep at the expense of Scott Kearsley, Mark Welsh and George Hastie.
