Cookstown move to top of league

The Bannsiders came to Gunning Moore park as current Irish senior cup holders and with an unbeaten run in this year’s league campaign. With Ballymoney not playing both sides had the opportunity to go to the top of the table.

On rink one Damian McElroy’s four got of to a flying start and at one point had a 10 shot lead over their opponents, a feature of the play on this rink was the consistency of Chris McKnights bowling. They eventually ran out winners by a margin of 23 - 14 shots.

On rink two Colin Hogg maintained his recent form with a 26-10 win over Coleraine’s John Calvin, this is 3 out of 4 victories for Hogg in the league programme.

Meanwhile on rink three Liam McHugh wasn’t having things his own way and despite a good recovery went down 15-19. On the remaining rink Cookstown’s Irish international Mark Wilson went head to head with Victor Dallas, Dallas a former Irish cap proved a difficult opponent.

Dallas’s son Jordan and the Town’s Johnny Shepherd showed some impressive lead bowling with Cookstown eventually winning by one shot.

Cookstown now face the current league champions Ballymoney twice in the space of four days, firstly they play in a league match at home and then travel to Ballymoney for the semi- final of the Pigott cup.

Not to be outdone the Town junior side went top of their section with a comprehensive 99-42 shots victory over near rivals Magherafelt. This makes it four wins in a row for the juniors and gives them a chance of league honours.

Also Mark Wison recently represented Ireland in the home nations tournament in Leamington Spa.

This was an unofficial trial for the Commonwealth games in Glasgow where there is no team competition but only singles, pairs, triples and rinks disciplines. Only six players in all were selected with Mark losing out on this occasion.