Para Home Nations - Day 3 Report
Day 3 – Final Session
The Para Home Nations came to its climax this today with Scotland taking on the Auld Enemy in the final session to decide the title. England only needed 1 victory to secure the silverware with Scotland needing a full 6 out of 6 to take home the title.
Scotland’s player of the weekend Danny Porter continued his sparkling form to ensure a 15-14 victory with John Wardrope which was all down to one of the bowls of the weekend with his final delivery. Porter and Wardrope were 4 down playing the last end, before Porter used his last bowl to knock his opponents bowl out of the head to claim an incredible 5 shots to ensure he finished the tournament with 4 wins from 4.
It was unfortunately not the same story for the 3 other Physically Disabled Pairs sides, who all suffered defeats but with Pauline Wilson and Garry Brown both tied going into the last their final bowls just narrowly missing their targets, it was very much a case of what could have been.
The Visually Impaired Pairs started strong with early points on the board, Commonwealth games pairing Robert Barr and Melanie Inness showed great resilience to secure a win despite a strong English fight back. Ian Graham and Sandra Watters swapped the lead back and forth throughout the game with their English opponents and despite leading going into the last few ends, England secured the victory by claiming 2 of the last 3 ends.
Scotland finished the tournament in second place ahead of a revitalised Welsh squad and behind hosts England who were just too strong all weekend.
High Performance Co-ordinator Robert Christie said “These championships were our first return to competitive bowling after 2 difficult years. With some new faces, the experience of playing international level bowls will be a great learning curve for the years to come.
For those players involved in Birmingham 2022, it was an excellent start to their summer preparations and has allowed us to see how we can continue to develop as the season progresses. Although we were disappointed in the overall result, 10 games over the weekend went down to the final end which could easily have all gone in our favour, so we have learned a great deal about the character of our squad and will continue to build over the coming weeks.”
Full results from Day 3:
Physically Disabled
Pairs – Scotland 11 - 14 England (Garry Brown (Capt) & Fraser Mathieson)
Pairs – Scotland 15 – 14 England (Danny Porter & John Wardrope)
Pairs – Scotland 12 – 15 England (Pauline Wilson & Rosemary Lenton)
Pairs – Scotland 5 – 27 England (Gary Hood & William Nicol)
Visually Impaired
Pairs – Scotland 10 – 13 England (Ian Graham & Sandra Watters)
Pairs – Scotland 13 – 12 England (Robert Barr & Melanie Inness)
Final Score – Scotland 4 – 10 England