Warm-up win for Hunts Bowls, but two narrow defeats for Northants Ladies
Hunts Bowls retained the Malcolm Squires and Dick Noble Memorial Shield with a convincing 107-70 victory over the Northants Bowling Federation at Parkway.
The annual fixture to remember two local bowls stalwarts, who made significant contributions to the counties in both codes, acts as a curtain-raiser to the men's national and county championship programmes that get under way next weekend.
Hunts won on four of the five rinks with the other drawn, Sam Brugnoli, Simon Law, John Earl and Peter Brown skipping the successful rinks, with Joe Randall's sharing the honours with Neil Wright's trio.
Sheron Noble and Norma Squires were on hand to present the shield to Hunts Bowls team manager Bob Morton.
While the men prepare for their tilts at national and county team honours, the Northants ladies have already been in action, opening with narrow defeats away to Norfolk.
The Donald Steward team went down 120-109 at Acle, with the rinks of Liz Hext (23-22) and Elaine Upton (32-16) securing four points for the county, while in the Silver Jubilee Vase, Northants were beaten 109-95, having to settle for four points courtesy of rink wins for Chris Ford (24-10) and Lisa Sharratt (24-14).
Hunts men and women are in Bowls England national competition action this weekend in the Balcomb Trophy and Walker Cup respectively.
The men face Cambs, Norfolk and Suffolk in pairs, triples and fours disciplines at Norwich on Saturday, while the women face the same opposition at Stowmarket the following day.
Meanwhile, Northants men open their English Bowling Federation county championship programmes against Hunts on Saturday, with Adam Emery captaining the Adams Trophy team for the first time in their match at St Ives, while Brian Bassam's Newton trophy side are in action at Sawtry.