Ladies through to Interzone Q/F

Armagh ladies booked their place in the last 8 of this season's Interzone with a convincing 31 shot victory over South Down at St. Saviour's.

A couple of players were unavailable which meant that Diane Agnew moved up to skip for the first time, and what a debut it was. After losing 2 singles in the first 2 ends, Diane's rink of Diane Bell, Hilary Agnew and Elizabeth Smith produced excellent bowls for the remainder of the match to score 22 shots without reply to win 22-2. This win was needed as on rink 2, Rachel Cassells' four of Eileen Trainor, Linda Milligan and Ann Patton were finding the going tough. After scoring 2 on the first end, they didn't score again until the last. By that time South Down had scored 15, but the 3 shots Armagh lifted in the last end helped ensure a half time lead overall. On rink 3, Flo McNally's rink of Agnes Crozier, Eileen McDonald and Rosemary Beattie had the best of the early stages in their game, but a loss of 5 put South Down in the driving seat. However, credit to the Armagh four, they finished strongly including a 3 on the last end to only loose by 1.

1st half scores:

D Agnew 22 N Magorrian 2 R Cassells 5 B Smith 15 F McNally 10 M McAnuff 11

Armagh 37 South Down 28

Leading by 9 at the break, Armagh needed to keep it tight at the start of the second half. They did this comfortably and the margin gradually increased. On mat 4 May Cassells, Michelle Wright, Irene Doone and Daphne Marshall were always in control of their game running out 11-4 winners. On mat 6 Christina Breen, Laura Cassells, Wendy Cassells and Pauline Beattie were in excellent form, and only for some latch ditch saving bowls by the opposition skip, would have won by much more than the 14-4 final score. The only Armagh rink having bother was Irene Cunningham, Zoe Minish, Leslie Strain and Irene Douglas. They were trailing 6-1 but an excellent count of 7 on the 6th end rectified that and effectively ended any chance South Down had of mounting a comeback in the match. Irene added 3 more singles to end up winning 11-6.

2nd half rink scores

D Marshall 11 P Mooney 4 I Douglas 11 J McClure 6 P Beattie 14 B Flanagan 4

Final score Armagh 73 - 42 South Down

Armagh will now travel to Western on the Saturday 13 January for the quarter finals.