ILMINSTER A have won the Somerset Bowls Premier League for the first time.

Ilminster, who haven’t won a major trophy for 24 years, played Bath on the final day of the league season and needed to win to secure the title. Clevedon were the other team in with a shout of winning the league and they faced Yeovil.

Ilminster, unaware of how events were playing out in Yeovil started well and took an early lead. Bath fought back though and by the half way stage had turned things around to take the lead.

Ilminster rallied late on though and two rinks pulled away to win comfortably while the third had to rely on Pete Mattravers winning the rink with the last shot, giving Ilminster victory on all three rinks.

With the result going in Ilminster’s favour it no longer mattered what happened at Yeovil. As it turned out Ilminster could have got away with dropping points as Yeovil caused an upset, beating Clevedon.

Scores: M. Hamilton, M. Rowe, B. Brister, N.Rowe 22-14; B. Hamilton, A. Holt, J. Miles, M. Denslow 23-15; W. Anderson, K. Hamilton, M. Tritton, P. Mattravers 22-21.

Ilminster B had the chance to emulate the first team on the final day of the season but just missed out on promotion despite beating league leaders Westlands.

Ilminster needed to win while their promotion rivals, North Petherton, lost. Ilminster played well and won comfortably but dropped a rink meaning they picked up ten points, not the maximum 12.

That meant Ilminster would win the league if North Petherton lost at Taunton Deane. Unfortunately for Ilminster Petherton were too strong for Deane and picked up maximumk points to claim the title and promotion.

n ILMINSTER bowler Louis Ridout travelled to Ireland with England Under-25’s to play in the British Isles series.

England faced Wales in the first match of the series and got off to a flying start. Ridout’s rink won 29-10 and England took overall victory, 119-114.

England then took on Scotland on Saturday afternoon and weren’t in the game from the start. They had just one winning rink and ended up losing heavily overall.

England’s final match was against Ireland on Sunday and they needed a heavy overall win to stand a chance of claiming the trophy. Unfortunately for England they performed poorly again and suffered a heavy defeat.