Edinburgh & Leith resuscitated their flagging campaign in the East section of The Hamilton Trophy with an upbeat performance away from home that was rewarded with the scalp of defending national champions East Lothian at Cockenzie & Port Seton.
Read MoreIt was a pre-match dampener for E&L that the hoped for seasonal debut of iconic figure Robert Marshall failed to materialise however the reformed line up with Darren Hush reinstated at skip produced a lion hearted effort that was reward by a nail-biting 106-103 victory.
The build up to the intense climax of an epic battle fought on a cliff-edge scenario from start to finish is captured by the neck and neck struggle for supremacy represented by phase scores of, (EL first); 33-33; 34-36; 36-37. It was a first defeat in four for an East Lothian team that had to cope with a good handful of enforced changes and almost delivered the goods; but were denied, ironically, by a spectacular last bowl jack to the ditch thunderbolt delivery from Hush.
A hushed banking had watched with bated breath as the E&L skip took to the mat with a head of two match losing shots against him and left to attempt a conversion that the locals knew to be impossible on the most testing hand of the whole green. We were beaten by a wonder bowl that was pure perfection and had no element of luck about it so deserves to be applauded was the sporting reaction of team manager Stewart Johnston albeit gutted by the shock result changing loss of three shots. Hush the Hero also tipped the scales in his own head to head confrontation having skipped Liam McKay, Andy McNab, and Stephen Pringle to a 16-13 win Stuart Thomson, Adam Martin, David Sked, and Billy Mellors.
The foundation of a much welcomed victory though was laid by Paul ODonnell skipping Graeme Eddington, Steven Pilley, and Craig Paterson to a solid and inspiring 22-9 win over Dean Riva, Matt Osborne, Graham Dodds, and Glenn Blair. ODonnells highlight spell coming in the shape of a five end run of 2, 2, 1, 1, 3 that accelerated his score from 12-7 to 21-7.
The tightrope nature of the match outcome saw the E&L banking cheer Paul Veitch skipping Lewis Betts, John Priestley, and Gordon Bold into a 9-1 lead then on to a 20-15 win over Callum Darling, Dave Whitson, Gordon Pryde and former E&L colleague Mal Higgenbotham.
East Lothian also cheered three winning performances with Brian Young skipping Steven White, Tom Young, and Billy Dunleavey from 12-2 to a 22-15 win over David Fisher. John McCrorie led 12-5 then pushed on from 13-11 to skip Ross Thomson, John Carpenter Jnr and Steve Cochrane to a 22-15 win over James Hogg while Matt McCormack, Craig McLeod, and Gordon White finished with a 3 to beat John McDermott, 22-18.