SULLY Indoor Bowls Championship Team travelled to Newport last Saturday for their final league game with great expectancy, yet ended up like the Welsh rugby side the previous evening suffering a humiliating defeat.

Sully, with their strongest available side out, was confident of giving a good performance based on the previous meeting between the teams whereby Newport scraped home by just five shots.

Newport always fields a strong team and Saturday was no exception with a number of current and past internationals playing, therefore Sully had to play above the norm to force a result.

It was soon evident in the early ends that Newport was in no mood to make it easy for the visitors and went straight into a 19 shot lead 18 – 37 by the end of the fifth.

At this point three Sully rinks of Martin Clarke, Ken McLeod and Brian Foscolo were actually competing strongly and were ahead by three, two and three shots respectively but the rinks of Fred Phillips, Mat Woodcock and Brian Griffiths were struggling against some fine bowling from the Newport rinks skipped by Tom Nicholls, Mike Dick and Alan Bradford.

By the tenth end Newport piled on the pressure and had increased their lead to 30 shots 38 – 68 with the Sully players’ way off form and continuing to struggle against a Newport team bowling at the top of their game.

At the three-quarter mark Newport were well ahead by an embarrassing 56 shots 57 – 113 with still six ends to play, only the rinks of Foscolo and McLeod were making a game of it being level and one behind respectively.

By the 21st and final end only Foscolo’s rink of Graham Cogbill, Gary Eastment, Mike Doyle managed a fine win beating an excellent Newport rink skipped by Brian Howard 21 – 19 by taking a three on the final end.

Unfortunately McLeod’s rink who had fought their way to the front by the 19th end then dropped a two and a single on the last two ends to lose by one shot 16 – 17.

The other Sully rinks didn’t turn up on the day and all lost heavily but hopefully this will have given the newer players an insight as to where they have to be in the future to improve their chances of competing against teams like Newport and Blaenau Gwent.

Match Result: Sully (88) two points v Newport (135) 20 points.

Overall the Sully players did well this year and will hopefully continue to improve their performances in readiness for next year.

Rink scores Sully first:-

K McLeod 16 v 17 P Williams

B Griffiths 12 v 24 A Bradford

M Woodcock 13 v 27 M Dick

F Phillips 10 v 30 T Nicholls

M Clarke 16 v 27 M Lewis

B Foscolo 21 v 10 B Howard