'Jack' Frost hits league programme

But the adverse climatic conditions of recent weeks had a knock-on effect as the Ballymena and District League campaign resumed last week.

Almost half the scheduled matches were called off as the programme suffered at the hands of the wintry elements.

"While football and other sports have been called off because of frozen pitches, as you would expect with an indoor sport, it wasn't the mats that were the problem," said league press officer Jimmy McCloy.

"But getting to and from matches was a different story and teams' decisions to call matches off was entirely understandable.

"When you have weather forecasters telling people not to make journeys that aren't absolutely necessary, then a bowls match has to be kept in some sort of perspective.

"The safety of people was the paramount concern and when you consider the conditions of some of the roads, particularly in rural areas, then the most sensible thing to do was to call games off.

"The league has no difficulty in that course of action being taken - you can't legislate for weather like we've been having.

"It wasn't just the state of the roads, clubs were reporting problems with the conditions of car parks at some of the venues.

"Clubs will have the opportunity to arrange new dates for matches between them, the general rule of thumb being that they should be replayed within 28 days of the original date," added Jimmy.

Of the games that were played, only two went ahead in each division.

DIVISION ONE

In Division One, there was almost a big upset as Ballymena United Social Club edged past JTI by a single shot in the Lisnafillan clubrooms.

It was all looking good for the basement side who had two points in the bag by the interval.

Timmy Rock and Len McIlroy were the successful skips, against BUSC rinks led by Malachy Martin and Andy Bonnar, as JTI opened up a nine-shot cushion at half-time.

The second half belonged to Social Club, however, as Nigel Robinson sliced four shots off that deficit with a 13-9 win over Brian Russell and Bryan Magrath completed the comeback, with a 12-6 win over Billy Lynn enough to nick the overall shots point for the Slemish Drive side.

In Randalstown, Michelin kept alive their title hopes by taking four points from a 41-22 victory at Old Bleach.

Nigel McNally secured Bleach's only point in the first half with a 9-8 win over Grant Robinson, but the visitors were six shots to the good at the break as Christopher Wilson marked his debut at skip with a 12-5 win over Mervyn McDonald.

Michelin pulled away after the interval with comfortable wins for Tom Lithco and Wesley Caldwell against Jim McCullough and Willie Fullerton.

The Woodside Road team remain on the fringes of the title race after, by their own high standards, a disappointing start to the campaign but they will have to put a sustained run of results together to gatecrash the title race.

DIVISION TWO

Portglenone Community Centre strengthened their position at the top of the second division after taking four points from a potentially tricky assignment at West Church ‘A’.

Portglenone had both points safely secured at the break and were in very good shape for the overall shots points, having established a commanding 7-29 lead, thanks to big wins for Kevin O’Kane and Jim Gaul against Maurice Livingstone and Matt McPeake.

JIm Rainey’s rink stopped the rot for West Church, opening up a 9-0 lead after three ends en route to a 15-7 win over Tom McCart but on the other mat, Joe McErlean’s Portglenone rink had opened up a 9-0 lead after five ends against Graham Wilson.

The church rink battled back to make the score 7-9 but a ‘2’ on the last end saw the Ports rink home.

The only other second division game saw Broughshane Playing Fields Association ‘B’ move into second spot after claiming four points from their home game against Enkalon.

The winning Broughshane rinks all had something to spare, including the first half rinks skipped by Terry McClintock and Noel Graham, who beat Chris Murray and William Moore.

In the second half, Joe Campbell also had a comfortable 15-4 success over Brian Mackle, while Basil Johnston secured a consolation point for Enkalon with a 9-3 win over James Wasson.

That point was enough to move Enkalon up a place in the table - ahead of Golf Seniors, whose match at Harryville Community Centre was off - but the Antrim side still face a major struggle to avoid relegation to the bottom tier.

DIVISION THREE

Leaders St Mary’s Portglenone suffered a surprise setback when they lost by six shots at West Church ‘B’.

It was all to play for at the break with the church side a shot to the good with Albert Henry’s 10-4 win over James McCann more than cancelling out Patsy Boyd’s 11-6 success for the visitors against Joe Harris.

In keeping with the closeness of the game after the break, David Aicken and Kieran Adams’ rinks couldn’t be separated in a 9-9 stalemate.

The destination of the majority of the points was ultiamtely decided by an 11-6 win for George Arthur’s West Church rink against Charlie Graham.

Two of the other would-be title contenders came up against each other in the Trostan Avenue clubrooms and it was visitors Dunclug PTA who emerged with the lion’s share of the points against Services ‘B’.

Eric Smyth’s rink had put Services ahead by beating Noel Clarke 12-5 but against that, Bertie Logan’s Dunclug rink delivered a crushing 17-4 win over Sheila Smith.

David Calderwood added to Dunclug’s advantage with a two-shots win over Roy Dickson, meaning that John Smith’s 11-4 win over Robert Neeson left Services an agonising one shot adrift of their opponents at the finish.