Bainfield launched their campaign for the indoor bowls Scottish Cup title with a commanding 27 shot first round victory over Tariff at Arbroath and that gave them back-to-back wins over a team they had beaten by 42 shots the previous weekend.
Turriff arrived at Arbroath with the Division 1 challengers nursing a strong desire to avenge their defeat in the playoff battle to secure a place in the sports premier league; but found Bainfield in no mood to yield supremacy. The ‘Edinburgh Elite’ did have in-camp concerns over the enforced absence of team captain Craig Paterson and regular stars Jamie Reid and Chris Downie but rising magnificently to the challenge proved superior on three of the four rinks. Steven Pilley, Graham Pringle, and Colin Tennant were the three replacements called up by team manager Alan Brown and all of them made pleasing contributions to their respective rinks. It was wins on the rinks skipped by Gavin Smith, James Hogg, and Colin Hutchison that kept Bainfield on the path to a victory never in danger of being compromised by a single figure setback suffered by Barry Hill. “I was pleased by the team performance overall but it is fair to say that the rink skipped by Gavin Smith was an inspirational force with their double figure win laying the foundations for what was eventually a comfortable victory”, reflected Brown.
Bainfield held the upper hand on all three phases of the match but a plus 4 and plus 9 on the first and third does show Turriff as being no pushovers and it took a 14 shot supremacy on the middle seven-end span to push the premier league side into a comfort zone. Smith showed no great signs of a later dominance when skipping Josh Spalding, Mark McIntosh, and John McDermott to a narrow 6-7 score over the opening seven-ends, but end eight sparked a purple-patch run of 4, 5, 3, 2, 1 against Graham Barclay. Having accelerated into a 21-7 lead to raise the temperature of the cup tie across the four rinks Smith and Co continued to be on fire and included a mighty count of 5 on end 17 as they wrapped up a sizzling performance with a 33-11 victory. Hogg made an encouraging start to skip Colin Tennant, Alan Brown, and Daniel Gormley into an 8-2 lead over Connor Milne; but was crossed 9-8 then remained under pressure at 12-12 before whipping up a whirlwind run of 1, 3, 1, (2), 4, 2, (2), 1 to storm to a 24-16 win. Hutchison -–the hero of the previous weekend with a 23 shot win -–renewed rivalry with Mark Thurston and on this occasion skipped Adam Brock, Steven Pilley, and Kevin Tennant to a harder fought 19-15 success. It had looked like another major success was on the cards for Hutchison when zipping into a 14-7 lead but the rink came under pressure at 14-14 before edging home with a 2, (1), 1, 2 finish. Hill-promoted to cover the absence of Craig Paterson -made a brilliant start to skip Graham Pringle, Danny McCourt, and Brian Stoddart into an 8-0 lead but it was all to play for at 12-12 and the Bainfield rink slipped to a 21-14 defeat from Kevin Beaton.