Bowls final sees Sables face WP

SABLES will play Western Province for gold in the final of the men's section of the South African B Inter-Districts Bowls Tournament currently being staged in East London.

In the women's section, the final will be between Eastern Province and Boland and a look at the standings shows that with one game remaining, neither side can be overtaken.

A single round will be played at Gonubie Bowling Club this morning, followed by the two finals. Only the winner of each men's and women's section will play for gold, with the loser receiving silver and the section runners-up bronze.

It was a day of upsets on the fourth day of the tournament yesterday.

After doing so well on Wednesday, both Border men's teams were brought back to earth with a bang when they lost to Kingfisher. Curtiss Smith went down 20-16 while Henry Sutherland lost 21-17.

Sutherland was lying four shots on the last end, which could have seen the game peeled, but opposing skip Rodney Fort cut it down to two for the win.

Kingfisher were lying second-last on the log on nine points while Border were in fifth position. In their next game Sutherland's side beat Sedibeng 21-16, but Smith lost 19-10.

It was also a bad day for Eastern Province when their men's sides, skipped by Shane Gobey and Eric Louw, went down 31-12 and 24-11 respectively to Southern Cape.

But EP hit back with a vengeance to beat Northern Free State, Gobey winning 34-9 and Louw 21-16.

EP women's manager Yvonne Olivier said the results from yesterday and today were crucial to Eastern Province making the final, fully aware of the upsets that had occurred.

She need not have worried as Eastern Province did enough against Limpopo in the afternoon to book their place in today's final.

"The teams have done exceptionally well and I'm proud of them,'' she said. - Brian McLean