TWO contrasting semi-finals of the County Fours saw Poole Park and Greenhill win through to the National Finals at Worthing in August.

Poole Park (Chris Lawrence, Phil Lawrence, Pat Ravelin, Chris Weeks) beat Greenhill (Dave Mitchell, Brian Burroughs, Derek Gray, Kevin Wallbridge) 21-18 in the quarter-finals, and had to face another Greenhill four that comprised of Micky Durant, Doug O’Bee , Kevin Hodder and Dave Ralph in the last four.

And in a surprisingly one sided encounter Poole Park eased away from 6-4 to take eight consecutive ends in a blistering onslaught to finish 21-4 winners with ends to spare.

Ralph had previously gained a last end measure for his victory in the quarters over Chris Evripidou, John Cresswell, John Potter, and John Hobby of Poole Park The second semi-final saw the Dorchester quartet of Steven Huttley, Martin Pavey, Nick Voss and Wayne Garnett tackle another quality rink from Greenhill, which included John Crabb, Dave Smith, Neil Burroughs and Barry Patterson.

With all eight players being in this season’s Middleton Cup the play was expected to be of a very high standard and spectators were not disappointed.

Patterson had taken care of a gallant four from West Moors (Peter Rhodes, John Frost, Ray Hunt, John Niblick) by a convincing score of 24-13 in the quarters while Dorchester edged through against Alexandra Park (Dave Baxter, Alan Trevett, Mike Stapleton, Mark Wanklyn) 17-15.

Patterson and Garnett had horns locked at 4-4 until Dorchester eased ahead at 11-7 and they were well placed at 15-9 after 14 ends.

However, at 16-12 with only five ends to play, the county town side then ran out of steam, as Patterson exploited his home green by taking shots the next four ends to draw level at 16 shots apiece.

The Dorchester four were unable to stop their perilous slide, and further dropped scores of two and three on the final two ends handed Patterson and co a 21-16 victory.