Ingrouille's four save whitewash

GUERNSEY bowlers Mike Le Noury, Kris Bichard, Chris Dyer and Paul Ingrouille salvaged some pride for the Channel Islands at the Atherley club in Southampton at the weekend when a British Lions team scored an emphatic double victory in a two-Test indoor series. A decision had been made to field two totally different Channel Islands teams of four rinks against the Lions, each one split 50-50 - two rinks from Guernsey and two from Jersey.

Suffering a painful defeat, the Channel Islanders must be wondering whether they should have fielded their best 16-man team, rather than dilute their strength across eight rinks, involving as many as 32 players.

By contrast, the Lions, who fielded one rink from each of the four home countries, kept their team intact throughout the weekend, and were rewarded with a 110-62 win on Saturday and a 95-56 victory on Sunday.

Only Ingrouille's quartet came away with a win for the Channel Islands after beating an Irish rink skipped by Brendan Thompson, 22-14.

Guernsey rinks skipped by Paul Merrien, Matt Le Ber and Gary Pitschou were well beaten, 27-17, 24-16 and 28-9 respectively, while Jersey rinks skipped by Gus McKinnon and Cyril Renouf were beaten 33-16 and 26-13 in the first Test and Ian 'Skippy' Hodgetts and Thomas Greechan lost 31-8 and 22-17 yesterday.