Cooke serves up win as Waverley beat Alexandra

However, unlike their earlier battles in the County Club & Rowland Cup, this match was much closer.

With one end to go, Alex were one shot up, however Paul Cooke’s rink gained a two to win the match for defending-champions Waverley.

Steve Feilder’s quartet managed a 16-shot win for Alex – their only victory.

A 12-shot success for Matt Marchant helped Waverley triumph.

Rowner took advantage of Alex’s loss to leapfrog them into second place after they travelled to Milton Park and won by 26 shots.

Leading the way for Rowner was the rink of Bill Ross who won by 15 shots over Mick Brown.

Fareham followed up their win last week by travelling to Lee-on-the-Solent and beat them by 32 shots, winning on two rinks and drawing the other two.

Mark Hanson’s rink beat Martin Ellis’ rink by 22 shots.

In the other game to beat the weather, Waterlooville just managed to hang on to defeat Priory by one shot.

The Priory rink of Mike Elliott won by 18 shots.

But Waterlooville won the other three rinks with Cyril Hilton’s quartet winning by 14 shots.

So, at the halfway stage of the season, Waverley lead the division by 15 points from Rowner.

In division two, leaders Vospers beat Purbrook Heath by 12 shots.

Although Tony Wall’s rink did manage an 11-shot win for Purbrook, it couldn’t cover the wins by Pete Musson (12 shots) and Terry Smith (11 shots) for Vospers.

Cowplain cut Vospers’ lead to one point after their travel to Swordsands where they inflicted a 61-shot thrashing to Naismith.

Cowplain again won on three rinks, with Bryan Franklin’s rink again topping the charts with a 33-shot rink.

Cowplain almost won on all four rinks but Naismith’s Mick Chandler managed to gain a two with his final wood to tie his game.

Leigh Park remained third after a one-shot away win at Hayling Island.

In a game with little defensive qualities, both clubs had big wins on two rinks with Pete Robinson’s 17-shot win for Leigh Park just outdoing the 16-shot win for Hayling’s Brian Pullan.

Bedhampton’s 17-shot home win over Star & Crescent took them into fourth spot in the table.

Bedhampton won on three rinks, with Keith Read’s rink doing the damage with their 13-shot win over Simon Filippi’s quartet.

The rink of Star’s Paul Whiffin prevented the whitewash.

Denmead inflicted a 22-shot home win over the division two whipping boys of Cosham Park.

Denmead won on three rinks with Cosham’s Tony Hall rink again preventing another whitewash.