Scottish Disability Sport (SDS) entered two triples for the inaugural East Lothian Indoor Bowling Club ProAm triples event. The event provided SDS with an opportunity to field two different combinations as preparations start to ramp up in the lead into the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018 in Australia.
The selected teams included a combination of players from the B6/B7/B8 classification groups and all players are members of the Scottish Disability Sport para bowls Commonwealth Games Extended Squad. They were supported by two of our leading coaches, Nigel Walker and Chris McGready.
The teams were as follows:
Billy Allan (Fife)
Garry Brown (West)
Michael Simpson (Fife)
AND
Barbara McMillan (Fife)
Mike Nicoll (Scottish Borders)
Martin Hunter (Fife)
The event attracted entries from many of the country’s leading mainstream bowlers, including the Alex Marshal MBE, Willie Wood MBE, Darren Burnett and Stewart Anderson, which provided a stern test for our players.
Allan, Brown and Simpson qualified from their pool winning each of their three matches to reach the quarter final, where they lost out narrowly. However, McMillan, Nicoll and Hunter struggled in their pool and failed to progress. The experience was of benefit for all the players involved, with all players gaining more playing time in the two bowl triple format, which will be the format used in Gold Coast 2018. A further plus point from an SDS perspective, was Mike Nicoll making his Scotland debut.
Throughout this year our leading para bowlers have major events to prove their worth, including the SYIBA Test Match in Falkirk in March, the Home Nations in Wales in April, the SDS/SIBA Indoor Bowls Championships in Falkirk in April, Multi Nation Event and Training Camp in Broadbeach Australia in May, Bowls Scotland National Championships in July and the Home Nations Championships in Nottingham in October.
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