IN CADOXTON A side's most recent South Vale League game against Barry Central both teams had to come off after the first nine ends because of a torrential downpour.

At that point, the bowls team had built a big lead, holding 53 shots to Barry Central's 21. That mastery continued when they restarted with 12 ends remaining, with Cadoxton recording a substantial 95 shots against Barry Central's 63 total.

In large part that victory was due to a strong performance by newly-blooded skip Ian Heppenstall and his rink of Alan Prince, Rob Byrne, and Ivor Robertson. The rink skipped by Dennis Hammond, supported by Will Craven, David Evans and John Jones (replaced by Alan Carpenter) increased their tally of shots from 15 to 27, and the rink skipped by Howard Craven, playing with Ewan Heppenstall, Steve Clarke, and Paul Swannick, came back from a seven shot deficit to win by one shot, scoring eight shots in the final three ends.

A side captain David Fanning got the wrong end of the stick, skipping his team of Ray Morris, Steve Conway and Les Adams and losing overall by 13 shots against a determined Barry Central team taking victory with 26 shots.

Gordon Davies and David Tuck were replaced from the original team.

W Craven, A Carpenter, D Evans, D Hammond 27 - D Hunt, J Frowd, G Goldthorpe, D Goddard 11

E Heppenstall, S P Clarke, P Swannick, H Craven 19 - M Piper, C Carstairs, S Downer, T Goddard 18

A Prince, R Byrne, I Robertson, I Heppenstall 36 - B Parker, P Harris, K Tanner, T Kaged 8

R Morris, S Conway, L Adams, D Fanning 13 – R Pearce, A Castle, T Hands, J Wathes 26

Final score: 95 - 63

A weakened Cadoxton team struggled for points at Abercynon in their ML5 fixture as John Jones skipped the only successful rink.

After losing a two on the first end they quickly took the lead and held the ascendancy for the remainder of the game except when the scores were tied after a three against on the eighth end.

The supremacy was shown by winning 10 of the last 13 ends. His young lead Ewan Heppenstall gave the rink a good foundation throughout.

Howard Craven failed to continue his winning ways on his rink, but he produced a dramatic finish by trailing the jack with his final bowl to make five shots, and tied the score. The rink were only in front on one occasion during the game, but were always in contention during the early stages, but a bad run took the home side into a 11 – 18 advantage, with three ends remaining. Two singles reduced the difference to set up the superb finish.

Don Kuhnell was without his regular lead, and the inexperienced replacement found himself, out of his depth in this standard of bowls. The home side led on most occasions which gave them two very close bowls, leaving Cadoxton chasing the game throughout, especially after losing 11 shots in the first four ends.

They did well to win nine of the ends, although mainly singles.

Roy Harding also had a change to his lead and had 10 shots scored against them without scoring after just four ends. A four on the next reduced the deficit.

The scores were evenly contested for the next eight ends, followed by another four for the visitors to reduce the difference to just two.

However a three and four against during the final ends decided the result.

W Craven, D Hammond, I Robertson, H Craven 18 - 18

R Morris, D Evans, K Chedgzoy, D Kuhnell 11 - 24

E Heppenstall, J Papoutsou, D Jeffries, J Jones 23 – 15

P Swannick, I Heppenstall, D Brook, R Harding 18 – 24

Final score: 70 - 81