Dunbarton need a favour

Both Belmont and Ballymena took advantage of their games in hand and in doing so, Belmont led the table from Dunbarton by 7.5 points on Saturday.

Dunbarton travelled to relegation threatened NICS on Saturday with a chance to close that gap, but with Belmont and Ballymena in Irish Cup action, both would then have further games in hand of the Gilford side.

The locals did return a winning margin of 34 shots and six points in their game at Stormont.

Chris Trainor, Michael Higgins, Gary McElroy and Conor McCartan on rink one were up against skip Stanley Hegan.

For the first half of this game little separated the two rinks, with McCartan’s four slightly ahead by ten ends (10-8).

A superb second half of the game from the locals were they only lost two ends saw them win convincingly 27-14.

On rink two, Sean and Kieran Trainor, Alan Paul and Martin Trainor were in fine form throughout their game against skip Freddie Murdock.

At five ends they were 7-4 ahead but by ten ends had raced into a 21-9 advantage.

They continued to score freely and returned with a 30-18 winning score.

David Copeland, Jack Moffett, Pete Convery and DJ Wilson on rink three played a NICS rink skipped by Ian Leonard.

Much like the games before on rink’s one and two, the Gilford men were in great form and had an impressive 30-17 winning margin.

Despite only being 7-6 ahead at five end, they soon upped the tempo and found themselves 14-7 in front by the tenth end.

Wilson’s four continued that to end fifteen where they were 25-13 ahead and another point was secure for Dunbarton.

Rink fours game of Chris Mulholland, Michael Merritt, Andy Hughes and Myles Greenfield turned out to be a close game, but one that went in favour of NICS and skip Alan Montgomery.

At five ends the Dunbarton rink were 3-5 behind and at ten ends the scores were level at 8-8.

The NICS rink held a three shot advantage by the fifteenth end (10-13) and with three ends to go all look lost for Greenfields rink as they trailed 11-18.

But four shots over the next two ends and they were playing the last end three behind (15-18) and indeed held 2 shots with only the skips bowls to come.

However, any hopes of an amazing comeback and 7th point soon evaporated with Montgomery’s first bowl turning the jack to a part of the green that left Greenfield with no chance of claiming another win.

The final score 15-19 in favour of NICS.

This weekend Mossley are the visitors to Gilford.

Another big points victory is a must for Dunbarton and they will hope results elsewhere will then go in their favour.