Brave final display from Dunbarton’s Ryan in U18 decider

The semi finals and finals of all of the Dunbarton players’ fixtures were all played at Old Bleach Bowling Club in Randalstown and during the week all of the Dunbarton semi finalists won their semi finals, meaning that the Gilford club were represented in an amazing four finals.

The crowd watching the finals on Saturday was made up by a large Gilford contingent!

In the early stages, this was evident as the Hilden bowler sprung out of the traps and into a 13-0 lead.

At this stage many experienced bowlers would have “given up the ghost”, however young Ryan showed why he is such a wonderful prospect for Dunbarton as despite being well behind, he soon started to play to his abilty and put his opponent under pressure.

Despite being just a couple of shots from defeat, Ryan put together a run of winning ends to reduce the deficit to 19-12 and the momentum was in his favour.

Unfortunately, when lying two shots on the next end, his rival produced a top quality weight shot to ditch the jack and score two shots and win the title.

Nonetheless, this was a superb effort by young Ryan who has already shown at such a young age what undoubted talent he has.

With father Gary and brother Eamonn playing on the A team, it would be no surprise to see young Ryan playing for the Dunbarton Senior team in the not too distant future.

The Dunbarton bowlers would like to thank the large crowd of supporters who made the long journey to cheer their team mates on. The triple and four will hoping that over the weekend of September 6-7, that they can add to their title by adding the Irish Triples/Fours when they travel to Larne for the Irish Finals.