Bowls: White Hart of Warboys on course for national finals

WHITE Hart Bowls Club of Warboys are on course to repeat their 2008 �triumph in the National Two-Fours competition.

They returned victorious from their trip to Avenue Bowls Club in �Coventry on Sunday, in which they needed all their concentration in a three-hour match.

The win takes White Hart through to the quarter-finals, which sees two four-man rinks go head-to-head.

The final shots aggregate of 45-41 in White Hart’s favour reveals little about the tussle that went on over the two four-ball rinks.

Rink One, skipped by England international Nick Brett alongside Lindsay Swannell, Brian Brett and Tristan Morton, were six shots to the good early in the match. However, Rink Two of Barry Dellar, Simon Leader, Ian McWhinney and Ean Morton (skip), trailed by the same score.

The home club hit a purple patch, and White Hart looked beaten as they looked down the barrel of a 12-shot deficit.

Brett’s rink came through to take their rink 26-18, but Ean Morton led his rink to a late fightback.

They managed to narrow the gap to 23-19, giving Hart a passage to the next round.

White Hart will travel to York on Saturday knowing a win in the quarter finals will see them back at Worthing for the finals.

n HUNTINGDONSHIRE’s 24-man Middleton Cup team were equally impressive when they showed grit and determination to claim their place at Worthing with a quarter final win over Northumberland on Saturday.

The match, at a neutral venue in Leicestershire, comprised of six rinks of four players per side. There was never more than six shots aggregate difference during the entire match.

Huntingdonshire came off second best in four of the six rinks but Tristan Morton’s rink were the undisputed stars, taking a massive 22 shot win against their north-east opponents.

The rinks led by Ean Morton, Stuart Popple and Nick Brett fell to agonising single-shot defeats, but Ryan O’Flanagan’s rink managed to take their game by the same margin.

Disappointingly, Trevor Collins and his rink struggled to hold a strong Northumberland quartet and lost by 18 shots. Thanks to Morton’s emphatic win Hunts took the match by a mere two shots at 112-110.

Huntingdonshire will face Devon in the semi-finals at Worthing on August 28, with a chance to avenge the defeat they suffered in the final three years ago.