Lurgan lose in Junior Cup

Londonderry Park B 83

Lurgan B 56

LURGAN B returned midweek to play Londonderry Park in the second Round of the NIBA Junior Challenge Cup.

Facing an unchanged home side, and having lost a league match the previous Saturday at the same venue, they suffered defeat again and exited this year’s competition at an early stage.

The Lurgan side did not perform to the best of their ability on the night and were always behind from the start. After five ends they were four shots short of the lead and by the mid-way point the Ards side had increased their lead to 10 shots.

Having picked up another 15 shots over the next five ends the visitors were staring defeat in the face. While Lurgan B was able to restrict their opponents to two further shots in the remaining ends the result was always inevitable.

On Rink One were Malcolm Lynch, Rodney McCarthy, Derek Henderson and Eric Dawson (skip), opposed by the home rink skipped by B Thompson.

The Lurgan rink was behind 11-4 after eight ends and although Dawson’s men tried to keep in touch, having won five ends by the fifteenth and restricted the rink score to 16-10 they dropped another 12 shots during the finishing ends which included a killer five shot on their last end, eventually losing the rink 28-12.

Ronnie McCullough, Bobby Livingstone, David Millar and Bobby Jones (skip) played on Rink Two against D McCullough’s rink.

By the eighth end the score was close at 7-6 to the home rink and the Lurgan men had made a confident start, but then lost four over the next five ends to trail 12-7 by the thirteenth.

However, Bobby Jones encouraged his rink to make a valiant comeback. The rink responded well and the score was 12-12 at the sixteenth.

Having been two shots up after the nineteenth they dropped single shots over the last two ends to leave the rink score all square at 15-15.

On Rink Three were Vincent Devlin, Charlie Maguire, Wilfie McCullough and Eamonn Quinn (skip), who faced C Anderson’s rink.

The visitors were seven shots adrift after the fifth end having dropped a four shot on the second. However, they won the next six ends by mostly single shots to square the rink at 7-7 by the midway point, but they went through a bad patch against aggressive bowling by the home rink which resulted in the Lurgan rink losing 11 shots and going behind 18-7 after the fifteenth end.

Although they tried hard, Quinn’s rink never recovered and lost the rink by 22-11.

Melvyn Hamilton, Jeffrey McCullough, Dick McClune and Sam Neill (skip) were on Rink Four for Lurgan B.

They settled in quickly on a tricky end rink and by the fifth end led 9-0 which included an inspiring four shot on the second but the home rink, skipped by Gordon Norris, were not discouraged and took the next four ends to reduce the Lurgan lead to 9-7, and having taken another seven shots Neill’s rink was five shots adrift at 17-11.

Neill played a good skip’s role which resulted in his rink, winning four of the last five ends and it looked like a rink-win was on.

Lying three shots during the last end Neill very nearly got the fourth with a brilliant last bowl. However, the rink score ended 15-15 - an overall win for Londonderry Park.