Evening News

Having let victory slip from their grasp away to Bainfield then collapsing to a shock defeat at home to Abbeyview the opening day conquerors of defending champions West Lothian at Livingston were desperately in need of a redeeming victory. “I impressed on our lads that the relegation zone was beckoning and to avoid the dangers of that we needed a big performance and I am delighted that they responded by leading from start to finish”, reflected team manager Frank Gray. “It was a tightrope situation for the first 14-ends as Coatbridge are no pushover on their home carpet but ends 15 and 16 proved to be massive game changers in our favour as we hit them with counts of 11-0 and 7-0 that accelerated us into a 30 shot lead”, he added. Midlothian’s problems in recent weeks has been their failure to put in a strong finish to their games and it does remain a concern to the team manager that on this occasion there were signs of a mini wobble that cut the winning margin down to 16. Gray had made changes in an effort to revitalise his distraught team the main one being the restoration of team captain David Peacock to his natural position at skip and although suffering s narrow defeat the overall response was a positive one. “The pleasing aspect for me was that when we were tested by the home side we came up with the correct answers and the thought did cross my mind that had we shown the same strong mentality against Bainfield and Abbeyview we would be sitting pretty at the top of the table”, pinioned Gray. Gray’s thoughts became even more significant when the shock news came through that West Lothian had lost at home to Blantyre resulting in the top of the table becoming a four way tie embracing WL, Blantyre, Midlothian, and Abbeyview, in that order. “It’s a major bonus to us that we are back in the race for the top qualifying spot with a real chance and that is a great incentive for us to improve our win ratio in the second half of the campaign”, said Gray. Wins on the rinks skipped by Colin Walker, Billy Peacock, and Ronnie Duncan was the pleasing aspect of a strong team performance that coped well with the two shot setback suffered by their captain. The phase scoring does reflect a hard fought game with Midlothian winning all three of the 7-end segments but by narrow margins of 6 (30-24), 6 (26-20), and 4 (27-23). Walker made a flying start to skip Ian Forbes, AJ Knight, and Davie Munro in to a 10-1 lead then stay strong to score a 21-13 victory over Sam McKenzie while Neil Watson, Andy Kelly, Kevin McDougall, and Ronnie Duncan were helped by a 7 in their 24-21 win over Gary Prunty. Perhaps the most significant contribution should be attributed to Billy Peacock who trailed 9-3 after 10 ends but initiated an exciting fight back with a strong run of 2, 1, 1, 5, 4, 1 to cross 17-9 then skip Jamie Aitken, Ian Fleming, and Colin McFarlane to a 20-13 win over Robert Murphy. David Peacock looked set for a good win when skipping Jamie Macnab, Lindsay Plenderleith, and Craig Hodge into a 17-11 lead but they slipped to a 20-18 defeat from an inspired Jim McLarrie