Midweek men bounce back from loss in convincing fashion

The visitors’ cause was not helped when they could only field 13 players, meaning that three of their rinks would have to play with only 3 players and also lose a quarter of their scores.

To be honest it would not have made any difference to the result even if the Belmont was at full strength as the Braid men won relatively comfortably on all four rinks.

Keith Burnett, Wilfie Stewart, Paul Davidson and Joe McKeown certainly did not have things their own way against R Simms and with a third of the game played the visitors led by 7 shots to 2.

The whole complexion of the game changed on the 7th end when McKeown’s men picked up a count of 7 shots and over the remaining ends the Braid men extended their lead to win the game by 21 shots to 14 (adjusted score 21-10.5)

Willie McNabb, John Houston, Liam Lyness and Robert Mark were tied at 9-9 after 11 ends against J Budde. Ballymena moved up a gear and over the remainder of the game they rink won all but one of the closing ends to wrap up victory by 18 shots to 10 (adjusted score 18-7.5)

Roy Kernohan, Bertie Thompson, George Stewart and Jim Cameron found the Belmont rink skipped by R May hard to shake off on rink 3 and with 10 of the regulation 18 ends completed the scores were level at 8-8. Three ends later the Ballymena rink had opened up a 10 shot advantage and they continued to dominate until the end to run out convincing winners by 25 shots to 9.

John Montgomery, Tommy Crooks, Norman Armstrong and Peter Millar made steady progress over the first two thirds of the game against G White and with 12 ends completed they had opening up a comfortable 11 shots advantage. The visitors however had their best period of the game over the next 5 ends when they picked up 8 shots without reply to narrow the gap to only 3 shots. Millar’s men however were not to be beaten and 2 shots on the final end gave them victory by 18 shots to 13.