This year’s Ralph Brooks competition, which is for the over 40’s, contained many Senior players who qualified for the Swan (over 50’s) and a fair number of Masters (over 60’s).
Duns were well represented with Colin Martin, a previous winner on several occasions, Liz Martin and John Hodge in one team and Colin Jeffries (a previous multi winner but not at skip) joining the Jimmy Green combo at lead along with Frank Forrest and Bill Mitchell.
In the only quarter final tie, Colin Martin played some remarkably good final stones to rescue his team in a hard fought match with Ian Dykes.
In the semi final, Colin’s team ran up against a very good Michael Sutherland outfit and ended up losers.
Meanwhile, in the other semi, the Jimmy Green team turned on the style to swamp Graham Cowe’s Earlston team 13 –4 in a one sided game.
The final turned into a route with Michael’s team going off the boil and the Green machine churning out the action to take the title by 9-1.
In his acceptance speech, Jimmy emphasised that he had gone for age and experience rather than youth and beauty.
The following day, Colin Jeffries (who was unused to all this sweeping) was still feeling the effects of his age at the Duns Pairs and was almost relieved not to make the final stages.