EAST Lothian Indoor Bowling Club men’s side’s battle to win the highly competitive B section of the Scottish Premier League will go right down to the wire.

Following their disappointing seven-shot defeat (86-79) away to Paisley in Saturday’s penultimate fixture, the Garden County side drop to third place in the section and now trail Lanarkshire and Falkirk by one point going into the final round of fixtures on Saturday, January 18.

East Lothian face a must-win match at home against Lanarkshire, then have to hope that Ardrossan can defeat Falkirk.

The phase scoring illustrates that East Lothian were always on the back foot and with 18 of the 21 ends played they trailed by 20 shots.

But a wonderful final-phase comeback saw them narrow the margin down to single figures, but the finishing line just came in time for the home side.

“We looked dead and buried but all credit to the players, as instead of folding we fought back with such tenacity that we came really close to stealing an unlikely victory,” reflected team captain Billy Mellors.

The most frustrating statistic for the visitors was that they managed wins on three of the four rinks – skipped by Derek Oliver, Scott Kennedy and Jamie Higgins – but a heavy defeat for Billy Mellors tipped the scales.

Oliver skipped Ewan Fallen, Gary Darling and Graham Robertson to a 24-18 win over Graeme Sloan, while Kennedy and his front three of Colin Cook, Jamie Gordon and Willie Wood looked set for a hiding at 19-5 down but an unbelievable turn of events saw them count 17 shots without reply to defeat world-stage star Jonathan Ross 21-19.

Stand-in skip Higgins yet again coped brilliantly in his unfamiliar role and skipped Mark Johnston, Tom Young and Stewart Thomson to a hard fought 22-21 win over Drew Stobo.

Mellors and his rink of Kieran Simants, Dougie Berwick and Steven Morgan were subjected to a nightmare experience by Calum Taggart as he converted a 12-4 lead into a 28-11 victory.

Most of the top male bowlers from Scotland were on parade at Meadowmill on Sunday as East Lothian IBC hosted the International Trial match.

Following the conclusion of the match, the home contingent of Alex Marshall, Derek Oliver, Willie Wood, Scott Kennedy, Billy Mellors and Graham Robertson have all been named in the final 24-man line-up for the British Isles Home International series at Stanley IBC in County Durham in March.

Wood, 75, continues his record-extending number of appearances, with the legend of the sport set to appear in his 29th series since making his debut in 1972, while Graham Robertson has been named captain for a third successive series.

The other home players who participated – Mark Johnston, Jamie Higgins, Steven Morgan and Stewart Thomson – did not make the final line-up.

Emma Brown, meanwhile, was named in the Scotland Ladies side and the 23-year-old will participate in her fourth consecutive series in the Ladies British Home International series, also being held at Stanley IBC in March.

The ladies’ side’s hopes of landing the honours in Division 1C of the Scottish Ladies League ended in disaster when they suffered a four-shot home defeat at the hands of chief rivals Bainfield in Saturday’s winner-takes-all clash.

“We had previously been undefeated at home so we were quietly confident we would get over the line, but sadly we had too many players performing below par and we paid the ultimate price,” said a team spokesperson. Defeats on the rinks skipped by Emma Brown (-11) and Nancy McNeil (-7) blunted the challenge of the home side and the battling wins on the rinks skipped by Janet Fairnie (+9) and Yvonne Veitch (+5) paled into insignificance.

The senior side’s hopes of going through the qualifying campaign in the East B section of the Scottish Senior League undefeated were thwarted when they suffered a shock 58-57 defeat at home against runners-up Bainfield.

The Garden County ‘auld yins’ had already secured their place in the knockout stages. A win for Peter Laidlaw (+7) and a battling draw for Willie Wood weren’t enough to balance defeats suffered by Frankie Gray (-3) and Tom Young (-5).

East Lothian will now tackle East A section winners Falkirk in the quarter-final at Headwell IBC on January 22.

The strong East Lothian partnership of Scott Kennedy and Billy Mellors enter the festive period with high hopes of giving an excellent account of themselves in the National 4-Bowl Pairs Championships this weekend.

The Garden County champions are in action at Abbeyview IBC in Dunfermline tomorrow (Saturday) and face a preliminary-round confrontation with a pairing from Allander on the 9.30am session.

For the ladies, the Hoggan sisters, Kim and Dee, are in action at East Fife IBC tomorrow at 2pm with a first-round clash against either Bainfield or Alloa.

The bowling stars of the future will be on parade at Meadowmill next Saturday (December 28) as East Lothian IBC stages its annual Youth Team Championship, with action from 9.30am.

Eleven sides from the length and breadth of Scotland will participate, with the eventual winning side capturing the East Lothian Council Trophy.

The veteran pairing of Brian Bissett and Willie Wood emerged victorious in last week’s inaugural quickfire pairs tournament at ELIBC. They defeated Steven Morgan and Derek Oliver on a one-bowl tiebreak.

The no frills, winner-takes-all event was hailed as a major success by club officials and another one is to be staged next Monday evening (December 30).