Bowls: Midlothian on track to retain Fours title

MIDLOTHIAN Indoor Bowls Club have an impressive record in the women's Scottish Fours and their current rink of Joyce Green, Jeanette Conlan, Sandra McLeish and Agnes Melrose is mounting a strong challenge for the 2010 crown.

Melrose and Co dominated their section of the playdowns with a bye in the preliminary stage followed by a hat-trick of wins over Tweedbank, Balbardie and Perth to book a place in the semi-finals at Prestwick later this month.

The same rink brought the title back to Dalkeith as recently as 2008 and that was a back-to-back success with Green taking over from Lorraine Grant, who played with the other three in the 2007 formation.

Indeed, international caps Conlan, McLeish and Melrose have played together in four title- winning successes and have been interchangeable with Conlan skipping in 1993, McLeish in 2003 and Melrose in 2007 and 2008.

The formidable partnership are now double booked for the showpiece climax to the national championships at Prestwick on 27 and 28 March as they are also through to the semi-finals of the Triples championship.

Current champions Midlothian received a bye in the preliminary round at Abbeyview so were a bit cold when tackling Tweedbank in the first round proper and came close to losing but survived 16-13.

Play switched to Methil for the next round and Midlothian beat Balbardie 19-18.

Perth, skipped by Evelyn Garvie, were to provide the opposition in the section final and they came into it having crushed defending champions West Lothian 24-8 but the Midlothian rink produced their best performance as a unit to win 26-12.

The challenge from the two Edinburgh clubs never got off the ground with the Bainfield rink skipped by Jean Meiklejohn making a 21-6 exit to Falkirk in the preliminary round and the Portobello rink skipped by Rita Reid losing 17-14 at the same stage to Coatbridge.

In their semi-finals, Midlothian face Coatbridge while Stonehaven square up to Ardrossan.