Larne’s dream of reaching final dashed by Dunbarton

Overall the game was decided early on as Dunbarton raced into a 20+ shot advantage after just five ends. Larne managed to pull it back to nine, but were outdone on two rinks by the better team on the night.

David McRandal’s men battled hard but the Gilford men had too much and handed his rink an 11-shot defeat.

Alan McLean’s quartet had a great battle on Rink 2 and Alan Mairs and Stephen Dalrymple were in top form. But the Dunbarton skip was inspired and played some cracking bowls to stay in the contest. The game ended in an honourable draw.

Michael Murphy’s four got off to a desperate start and took some time to get back into the game. They fought back superbly from 3-23 to trail 16-24 with 6 ends to play. The opposition proved too strong over the final ends and Michael eventually lost by 17.

Andy Kyle’s charges bounced back from their bad result to play a great game against another strong quartet. The lead changed hands throughout and with all players performing so well on both sides another draw was a suitable result.

The defeat came just two days after Larne got the better of Pickie to go top of the Private Greens Senior 1 table.

Larne won on three rinks and took six points to sit proudly at the top of the league. Several teams currently have a game in hand but if the Larne men win five of their remaining six matches they will have a great chance of claiming the Division One title for the first time since 1948.

Remaining fixtures:

Tuesday, Aug 11 v Ulster Transport (away)

Saturday, Aug 15 v Ballymena (home)

Saturday, Aug 22 v Old Bleach (away)

Saturday, Aug 29 v Ards (home)

Saturday, Sept 5 v Willowfield (home)

TBA v Dunbarton (home)