West Barns ace Billy Mellors is to fly the flag for the county in the singles at the Scottish National Championships at Ayr Northfield after taking the scalp of East Linton veteran George Cowan in the district qualifying finals.

Monday evening’s final at Prestongrange BC was a very one-sided affair with Scotland ace Mellors putting on a strong performance to win 21-2 in 14 ends.

EL-Coop star Ross Thomson booked his passage to Ayr in the junior singles at the 21-14 expense of Brian Forbes jnr, taking 22 ends to beat his EL-Coop teammate.

For the second consecutive year, Tranent captured the limelight in the pairs – this time the father-in-law and son-in-law combination of Jim Bonner and Brian ‘Sconie’ Young produced a cracking performance that was reflected by a handsome 23-15 victory over Gifford top notches Brian Galloway and Gary Darling. EL-Coop captured the honours in the triples final but not before an epic encounter against Dunbar went to the last end decider.

Craig Cochrane, Duncan Hogg and Gordon Pryde raised the victory salute with a 12-10 win over Bobby Brunton, John Shields and Steven Anderson.

The major drama of the finals was produced by the West Barns rink of Kevin Thomson, Chris O’Brien, Gary Landells and Alister ‘Bongo’ Kennedy who scored a last-end victory over Kevin Deans, Steven Kerr, Alan Clydesdale and Richard Black of East Linton.

It was a heart-breaking defeat for East Linton as they had been the pacesetters throughout the encounter with leads of 5-0 and 12-9 before Kennedy and Co produced a purple patch run of 1, 1, 2 then clinched a match winning single on the final end.

Cockenzie & Port Seton prevailed in the Senior Fours with Alex Jamieson skipping Willie Doran, Sinclair Thomson and Kenny Morgan to a convincing 17-9 victory over East Linton while Sandy Plenderleith of Gifford captured the Senior Singles after edging a cracking encounter against Tommy Thomson of Cockenzie & Port Seton, 21-19.