County side’s narrowdefeat (From Hereford Times)

County side’s narrowdefeat

4:40pm Friday 5th September 2008 in Sport

HEREFORDSHIRE visited Sir Thomas Rich BC for their annual match against Gloucestershire and, although defeated by 123-113 on an excellently-prepared green, had two winning rinks with another finishing level.

Keith Price skipped the top Herefordshire rink, given fine support by Mick Hill and Ray Bilby at the front end and Graham Pritchard, who was playing his first county match, at number three. They outclassed their opponents, losing only seven ends in the match.

They led 10-3 after 10 ends but scored nine shots on the following three ends for a 19-3 lead to which their opponents had no answer and Price kept up his recent top form to guide his rink to a 32-11 victory.

Ron Perry skipped the second successful Herefordshire rink, and with John Beavan finding a consistent weight and outdrawing his opposing lead to give a fine start, Roy Harris and Alec Carter gave the back-up to finish with a 25-15 win after leading 17-8 after 14 ends.

The rink skipped by Don Pugh had a very close low-scoring game with 14 ends being decided by a single shot and, after being level at 11-11 after 14 ends, the game finished 15-15 Colin Reading's rink were down 11-7 after 12 ends and were unable to catch up in the remaining ends, finally going down 25-14, while Dave Holloway's rink were behind from the start and also lost 25-14.

The highest defeat was suffered by Jim Farmer's rink who were down 18-4 after nine ends and managed to win only six more ends, finally losing 32-13.