Disappointing finish for Midweek men

Joe Kyle, Dessie Shaw, Liam Lyness, and John Greer made a disastrous start to their game against S Walker on rink 1. The Belmont rink won the first 5 ends and with scores of 7,4,2,2,2 and the game was effectively over before it really began.

The Ballymena men did manage to win the next 4 ends to reduce the deficit to 12 shots, but they could only win two of the remaining ends to eventually go down by 26 shots to 7.

Roy Kernohan, John Houston, George Stewart and Jim Cameron won the first 2 ends against N Dawson on rink 2 however the Belmont rink scored 12 unanswered shots over the next 6 ends to take control of the match.

Three ends later the Braid men had reduced the arrears to 6 shots however the home rink won the majority of the last 7 ends to wrap up a 20 shots to 11 victory.

Rowly Woods, Tommy Crooks, Paul Davidson and Harold Smyth hit the Belmont rink for 6 on the second end to lead by 3 shots.

The lead was still 3 shots after 6 ends however the home rink gradually pulled away from the Ballymena men over the remainder of the game and with a count of 5 shots on the penultimate end they eased their way to a 24-17 victory.

On rink 4 Alan McCombe, Jackie Barr, Leslie Jackson and Billy Scullion were well in touch with the Belmont rink skipped by G Fleming and after 6 ends with the score was 6-5 in favour of the home rink.

Unfortunately for the Braid rink they conceded 4 singles and 3 counts of 3 shots over the next 7 ends to trail by 13 shots and even though the Ballymena men finished strongly they could not avoid a 20 shots to 14 defeat.

This was Ballymena Midweek's final game of the 2010 campaign.

The team has had a decent year with the team finishing a respectable eighth out of 16 teams. This season the Braid men did not make a great start to their league campaign when they suffered 4 straight defeats in May to Cliftonville (H), Mossley (A), Ards (H), Dunbarton (A).

A change of month brought a change of fortune and between the start of June and the July break the Ballymena Midweek team were only beaten once in the league by Ulster Transport (A) but they also recorded four victories against Pickie (H), Forthriver (H), Larne (A) and Magheradroll (H).

When the league resumed late in July a defeat at Knock (A) was followed by 2 maximums against Falls (H) and Downpatrick (A) however this was followed by 2 heavy defeats Ewarts (H) and Belmont (A).

In the NIPGL Midweek Cup the Ballymena men lost in the early stages to Belmont (A).