Portglenone men sunk by Irish Cup champions

Portglenone had a difficult home match against current Irish Senior Cup holders Coleraine on Saturday.
Bowls.Bowls.
Bowls.

The wee Port’s confidence had taken a dip after a convincing defeat in the Piggott Cup at the hands of Ballymoney earlier in the week.

On Rink 1, Kieran Adams, Peter McCann, Mark Jones and Eamon McCann were drawn against Ally Davison. This match was decided in the first 10 ends as at the halfway point, the Coleraine rink had opened up an unassailable 18-1 lead.

Eamon’s rink never gave up though, and showed some of that wee Port fighting spirit to battle back and close the gap slightly to 26-11 at the end.

On Rink 2, Mark Pearson, Jim Gaul, Adam Hunter and Stephen Smyth took on Ian Ross. Stephen’s rink claimed an early 4 shot lead and at halfway were just ahead 9-8.

This was a really closely fought affair, with the Portglenone rink staying ahead by the odd shot until the penultimate end, when the Coleraine rink drew level.

The last end saw Stephen Smyth draw the shot with the last bowl of the game to claim a superb 17-16 victory.

Rink 3 saw Stephen Young, Paul Gray, Eamond Teacy and Joe Moore take on Victor Dallas. This game went the way of the visitors in the early ends, and this trend continued past the half way mark, with Victor 10-5 ahead.

In fact, the Portglenone rink were behind until the very last end when Joe Moore drew the shot with his last bowl to claim a well deserved draw 15-15.

Finally, on Rink 4, , Adam Jones, Aaron Foster, Chris Jones and Sean Quinn faced Jonathan Calvin.

This game see-sawed from one rink to the other; with Sean leading 4-1 early on and then facing an 11-4 deficit at 10 ends.

A run of 13 shots without reply gave Sean the lead again at 17-11, however, a run of 16 shots for the loss of one ended this game and the Coleraine rink won 27-18.

Portglenone can take pride in the response across the green to the previous performance, despite defeat to a very good Coleraine side, who will be in the hunt for league honours this season.

Portglenone are in action this Saturday in the Irish Senior Cup second round away to North Belfast.

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