Bowls: Mossley men close in on League title

The writing was on the wall for the Newforge-based club when they arrived at Mossley with just 14 players, meaning they would have to field two triples who each would lose a quarter of their score at the end of the game.

Not even the advantage of four players having an extra bowl was sufficient to make a fight of things against Mossley rinks skipped by Colin Houston and Eddie Crawford. Both home rinks earned comfortable victories even before the deductions were applied to the PSNI scores.

It was only on Rink 2 where a dogged performance by the PSNI back-end threatened to prevent Mossley picking up all seven points. This game hung in the balance until the 17th end when the Mossley rink established a sufficient cushion to see themselves home safely.

Rink scores: – Ian Strange 24; P. Franks 9; Gareth Bell 23; B. Hunter 17; Colin Houston 24; F. Rankin 11.25; Ian Strange 24; P. Franks; Eddie Crawford 23; S. Wilson 9

The League title will be won or lost this week for Mossley. They were set to play Cavehill on Tuesday evening (August 21), and then away to Ballywalter BC on Saturday, August 25.

A win by any score in either of these two games will be enough for Mossley to retain the title they won last year and become the first club to win Senior Division 2 in successive years.

Mossley Juniors slipped to a 2-5 (87-80) defeat at Danube Street against a 15-man North Belfast side and in doing so slipped to outsiders in the three-way tussle for the two promotion slots.

The match went down to the last end with Mossley two shots adrift after having led for most of the afternoon. It was left to the Mossley rink skipped by Ronnie Templeton to turn the game in their favour and secure his own rink point at the same time. However, all hopes of a potential 6-1 win for the visitors evaporated when North Belfast scored five shots on the last end to win by seven shots.

Rink scores: Richard Culbert 19; E Totten 36; Sammy Saulters 21; J Bell 12; Ronnie Templeton 17; T Johnston 23; Jim Kelly 23; G Maginnes 16.

Mossley must now await the outcome of the Ewarts v Knock game next Saturday before visiting Knock on the last day of the season - when a win could see the Juniors promoted to Division 1 and also give them an outside chance of winning the title.

Mossley Ladies hit the headlines this week when Meta Kyles and Linda Culbert competed in the final of the Women’s PGL Pairs at Pickie Bowling Club. It was the first time in several years that Mossley Ladies were represented in these finals, and although they lost out to a Belmont Pair skipped by Irish international Paula Montgomery, they should feel proud of their achievement.